THE  ISSUE 


THE  ISSUE 


BY 


J.  W.  HEADLAM,  M.A. 

AUTHOR  OF  "LIFE  OF  BISMARCK,"    "THE  HISTORY  OF 

TWELVE  DAYS,"    "  ENGLAND,  GERMANY, 

AND    EUROPE" 


HOUGHTON  MIFFLIN  COMPANY 

BOSTON   AND   NEW  YORK 

1917 


V>1ftA^t 


Copyright, 

BY    HOUGHTON    MlFFLIN    COMPANY 

reserved 


NOTE 

CHAPTERS  I,  II,  III,  and  IV  of  this  book  have 
already  appeared  in  the  Nineteenth  Century  and  After. 
Chapter  V  is  reprinted  from  the  Westminster  Gazette. 
I  have  to  express  my  obligation  to  the  Editors  for 
permission  to  reprint  them  in  the  present  form.  They 
are  reprinted  almost  without  alteration,  and  I  have 
not  attempted  to  change  them,  even  in  those  cases 
where  what  was  written  some  months  ago  would 
now  be  expressed  rather  differently.  The  Introduction 
is  new. 


CONTENTS 

INTRODUCTION i 

I.   Two  MANIFESTOES .  41 

n.  THE  PARTY  LEADERS 63 

III.  THE  GERMAN  CHANCELLOR  AND  PEACE   .  74 

IV.  PRINCE  BULOW  ON  PEACE 103 

V.   CENTRAL  EUROPE 122 

APPENDIXES: 

I.    MANIFESTO    OF    THE    Six    INDUSTRIAL 

ASSOCIATIONS 143 

II.   GERMANY'S  PEACE  TERMS 152 


Vll 


THE    ISSUE 

INTRODUCTION 

THE  articles  contained  in  this  volume,  which  were 
written  during  the  summer  of  last  year,  contain 
an  examination  of  some  of  the  suggestions  as 
to  terms  of  peace  which  have  from  time  to  time 
appeared  in  Germany.  I  republish  them,  for 
they  may  be  useful  as  helping  to  throw  into  a 
proper  perspective  the  complaints  that  now  come 
from  Germany,  that  it  is  England,  and  England 
alone,  which,  by  the  immoderate  nature  of  her 
demands,  stands  between  Europe  and  the  peace 
which  all  desire.  It  is  well  to  probe  the  nature 
of  the  terms  which  many  men  in  Germany  would 
have  proposed  at  a  time  when  a  decisive  German 
victory  still  appeared  probable.  It  is  well  that 
we  should  not  forget  these  things,  for  there  are 
still  not  only  neutrals,  but  even  Englishmen, 
who  continue  to  talk  as  though  the  British 
Government  had  wantonly  refused  favourable 
offers  of  peace  and  reasonable  terms  of  reconcilia- 
tion which  had  been  offered  by  the  German 
Chancellor. 

It  would  have  been  easy  to  increase  the  bulk 
of  the  book,  by  including  in  it  selections  from  the 


2  THE    ISSUE 

press  and  from  the  pamphlets  issued  in  such 
abundance  by  private  individuals.  I  have  deliber- 
ately refrained  from  doing  so.  Nothing  is  more 
pernicious  than  the  modern  habit  of  quoting  freely 
in  other  countries  the  foolish  and  exaggerated 
utterances  of  obscure  individuals  and  newspapers, 
or  the  noisy  leaders  of  extreme  factions,  who  are 
to  be  found  in  every  country,  and  by  transporting 
them  across  the  frontier  giving  them  an  import- 
ance which  no  one  at  home  would  attribute  to 
them.  It  is  a  habit  to  which  even  distinguished 
German  historians  have  given  their  support,  and 
we  find  the  official  spokesmen  of  the  Government, 
and  men  such  as  Prince  Biilow,  quoting  as  evi- 
dence of  English  intentions  the  words  of  English- 
men which  are  treated  at  home  with  the  neglect 
that  they  deserve.  In  this  I  do  not  propose  to 
imitate  them;  I  have  endeavoured  to  confine 
myself  to  evidence  as  to  what  seems  to  be  the 
considered  opinion  of  the  responsible  Government, 
the  leaders  of  parties,  the  corporate  opinion  of 
influential  associations,  or  the  writing  of  men 
who  appear  to  carry  real  weight  in  Germany. 

Some  apology  is  necessary  from  anyone  who  at 
such  a  time  says  or  does  anything  that  may  seem 
to  tend  to  postpone  the  arrival  of  peace.  No 
position  is  so  contemptible  as  that  of  the  man  of 
letters  who,  from  the  security  of  his  home,  where 
he  is  himself  free  from  danger  and  hardships, 
adds  to  the  spirit  of  national  animosity  which  has 
already  reached  so  lamentable  a  pitch,  or  con- 


INTRODUCTION  3 

tributes  to  the  prolongation  of  the  war,  when  he 
knows  that  by  so  doing  he  is  helping  to  send 
thousands  of  men  from  every  country  in  Europe 
to  misery  and  death.  It  would  to  me  be  far  more 
agreeable  to  join  those  who  demand  that  the 
slaughter  and  destruction  should  now  cease,  and 
who  ask  with  indignation  what  sound  reason 
can  be  given  for  its  continuance.  But,  in  public 
as  in  private  affairs  he  is  not  always  the  best 
peacemaker  who  refuses  to  recognise  the  existence 
of  any  real  cause  of  difference.  On  the  contrary, 
a  clear  recognition  and  definition  of  the  matters 
at  issue  may  often  prove  the  best  means  towards 
reconciliation.  And  so  I  have  attempted  to  put 
into  the  clearest  light,  using  the  evidence  afforded 
by  the  statements  of  the  Germans  themselves, 
what  is  the  real  issue  of  the  war,  and  the  reason 
why  the  only  suggestions  as  to  peace  which  have 
come  to  us  from  Germany,  with  any  claim  to 
authority,  are  unacceptable. 

I  call  this  book  The  Issue.  There  have  been 
in  fact  three  great  issues  of  the  war,  but  it  is  on 
one  of  them  alone,  that  which  was  the  first  and 
remains  the  last,  that  I  wish  to  concentrate  at- 
tention. The  three  issues  were  what  we  may 
call  the  Atlantic,  the  Eastern,  and  the  European. 
Of  these,  the  first  was  in  a  way  secondary;  *.  e., 
it  did  not  arise  from  the  origin  of  the  war  and  the 
conflict  with  Russia,  but  was  only  brought  into 
prominence  by  the  entry  of  England  into  the  con- 
flict. We  can  say  with  certainty,  that  it  had  not 


4  THE    ISSUE 

been  the  intention  of  the  German  Government, 
and  those  who  moved  for  war,  to  attempt  to 
settle  the  issue  with  Great  Britain  before  that 
with  France  and  Russia  had  been  decided.  This 
we  must  remember;  but  there  is  also  no  doubt 
that  in  the  German  Nation  itself  this  now  holds 
the  most  prominent  place.  The  overthrow  of 
the  British  dominion  at  sea,  the  consequent  dis- 
solution of  the  British  Empire,  the  transference 
of  sea  power  from  Great  Britain  to  Germany,  is 
that  on  which  they  have  for  many  years  set  their 
heart,  and  which  is  now  their  avowed  aim.  It  is 
an  ambition  which,  as  we  may  recognise,  is  natu- 
ral enough,  and  I  do  not  see  that  we  have  any 
ground  for  complaint  if  they  chose  to  challenge 
us.  Our  Empire  has  been  gained  by  war,  and  if 
it  is  attacked  it  must  be  maintained  by  war.  The 
ambition,  at  least,  was  not  necessarily  an  ignoble 
one;  it  sprang  not  merely  from  vulgar  jealousy 
or  from  commercial  competition ;  there  was  in  it 
perhaps  something  of  the  great  spirit  of  romance 
and  adventure.  The  new  Germany  which  has 
grown  up  during  the  last  fifteen  years  has  looked, 
as  in  the  past  many  generations  of  Englishmen 
have  looked,  to  the  larger  world  beyond  the  seas. 
The  forests  of  Africa  called  them  and  the  Coral 
Islands  of  the  Pacific,  the  romance  of  the  East 
and  the  limitless  expanses  of  the  ocean  summoned 
them  to  vistas  and  ambitions  which  had  been 
closed  to  their  forefathers,  shut  up  within  the 
narrow  limits  of  their  petty  states  and  tiny 


INTRODUCTION  5 

cities.  They  wished  to  be  recognised  in  these 
distant  lands,  not  only  as  settlers,  traders,  and 
explorers,  but  as  members  of  a  great  imperial  race, 
as  conquerors,  rulers,  and  administrators.  It  was 
a  great  ambition  natural  to  a  nation  looking  upon 
the  world  full  of  the  longing  for  great  deeds, 
desirous  to  take  their  place  in  the  secular  succes- 
sion of  great  empires,  desirous  that  Germany 
and  a  German  ruler  should  be  one  of  the  series 
whose  names  are  irrevocably  written  upon  the 
chronicle  of  the  ages,  wishful  to  emulate  the 
deeds  if  not  of  Alexander  and  of  Csesar,  at  least 
of  Alani  and  of  Attila.  There  is  an  immortality 
awarded  to  destruction  as  well  as  to  creation,  and 
there  was  one  thing  alone  that  seemed  worth 
doing,  the  overthrow  of  the  British  Empire.  I 
say  that  it  is  not  an  ambition  which  we  need 
grudge  them;  it  sprang  from  their  full  knowl- 
edge of  the  greatness  of  the  task.  They  saw  that 
the  British  Empire  was  the  only  institution  of  the 
present  day  which  seemed  to  challenge,  in  the 
greatness  of  its  achievements  and  the  magnifi- 
cence of  its  ideals,  the  great  empires  of  the  past. 
We  hold  the  challenge  cup  of  the  world,  and  it 
was  by  challenging  us  alone  that  they  could  be- 
come one  of  the  great  world-empires. 

Such  a  challenge  could  not  be  refused.  Noth- 
ing would  be  more  lamentable  than  that  the 
countrymen  of  Drake  and  Hawke  and  Nelson,  of 
Give  and  Wolfe  and  Wellington,  should  shrink 
from  it  or  fail  in  the  courage  and  resolution  to 


6  THE    ISSUE 

keep  up  by  their  own  deeds  what  had  been  ac- 
quired by  their  fathers. 

There  were  many  among  them  who  believed, 
and  I  suspect  believed  with  regret,  that  no  con- 
flict would  be  necessary,  that  the  British  Empire 
would  fall  by  the  forces  of  decay  which  seemed 
to  be  eating  away  its  very  heart,  as  did  the 
Empire  of  Spain;  of  this  there  was  no  doubt, 
and  for  thirty  years  there  has  been  no  doubt  that 
the  day  would  come  that,  if  the  British  Empire 
did  not  fall  to  pieces  of  itself,  the  Germans  would 
attempt  to  wrest  from  us  the  sovereignty  of  the 
seas. 

This  was  their  golden  fleece.  But  the  golden 
fleece  was  guarded  by  the  dragon.  They  had  no 
Medea  to  charm  the  dragon  to  sleep.  They 
ploughed  with  their  steeds  and  the  armed  men 
sprang  up  from  the  earth,  but  they  had  no  magic 
to  throw  among  them  to  make  them  turn  their 
arms  against  one  another. 

In  truth  this  branch  of  the  war  had  been 
decided  before  the  first  shot  was  fired.  It  was 
decided  fifteen  years  ago.  A  successful  attack 
on  England's  maritime  and  naval  position  was 
only  possible  on  the  hypothesis,  either  that  it 
was  unexpected  and  unprepared  for,  and  that  the 
self-governing  dominions  would  not  support  the 
mother  country  in  the  war,  or  that  Germany  had 
allies  who  could  give  her  efficient  help  on  sea  as 
well  as  on  land.  What  danger  there  was  from 
the  first  contingency  had  been  removed  owing  to 


INTRODUCTION  7 

the  extraordinary  folly  of  the  Emperor  and 
Prince  Biilow.  They  talked,  they  boasted,  they 
swaggered,  and  they  bullied,  but  talk  and  boast- 
ing, swaggering  and  bullying  are  not  the  best 
preparations  for  victory.  The  issue  was  decided 
in  the  South  African  War,  for  in  this  it  was 
shown  that  the  enmity  of  Germany  to  this  coun- 
try was  one  which  concerned  not  the  British 
Isles  alone,  but  the  whole  structure  and  cohe- 
rence of  the  Empire.  This  gave  a  new  purpose 
and  conviction  to  the  imperial  naval  strategy, 
and  England  was  therefore  not  unprepared,  for 
Great  Britain  became  conscious  that  she  was  act- 
ing as  the  trustee,  not  for  herself  alone,  but  for 
all  that  was  involved  in  the  maintenance  of  the 
integrity  of  the  Empire.  The  second  danger 
was  removed  by  the  failure  of  German  diplo- 
macy, which  brought  it  about  that  she  entered 
on  this  war  without  allies  (except  Turkey)  who 
could  give  her  any  effective  assistance  in  the 
struggle  with  the  British  Empire. 

The  second  issue  is  that  which  centres  round 
Turkey.  The  instrument  of  it  was  German 
patronage  of  Mahomedanism.  Based  as  it  was 
on  the  perfidious  intrigues  carried  on  during  the 
years  of  nominal  peace,  it  is  the  greatest  crime 
against  European  civilisation  of  which  any  state 
has  yet  been  guilty,  for  it  depended  on  the  alli- 
ance between  German  and  Turkish  militarism, 
the  avowed  object  of  which  was  to  set  up  again 
Turkish  rule  in  Egypt,  and  to  use  the  wild  pas- 


8  THE    ISSUE 

sions  of  Islam  for  the  overthrow  of  the  civilising 
influence  of  Europe. 

In  this  part  of  the  war  the  decision  has  long 
been  delayed.  The  issue  in  it  will  depend  on  that 
in  the  European  war. 

There  remains  the  third  and  the  great  issue, 
that  with  which  the  war  began,  and  with  which 
it  will  close:  the  question  of  the  predominance 
of  Germany  in  Europe.  In  truth  it  includes  the 
other  two,  for  to  a  Germany  predominant  in 
Europe  the  conquest  of  the  East  would  be 
open,  and  against  a  Germany  which  wielded  the 
resources,  military  and  material,  of  the  whole  of 
Central  Europe,  England  would  eventually  be  un- 
able to  hold  her  own.  Let  us  therefore  consider 
for  a  moment  what  is  at  stake  in  this  matter. 

The  origin  of  the  war  and  its  object  are  iden- 
tical; there  has  been  no  change  in  the  views  of 
Germany.  What  the  issue  was  in  August,  1914, 
that  it  is  now.  If  we  look  beyond  the  details  of 
the  discussions  and  the  negotiations  to  the  great 
issue,  that  is,  as  it  always  has  been,  simple 
enough,  and  there  is,  I  think,  no  difference  as  to 
the  facts  between  the  two  parties.  The  strong- 
est accusation  which  is  made  against  Germany 
by  the  Allies  is  in  fact  acknowledged  and  cor- 
roborated by  German  statesmen  and  German 
writers.  The  ultimate  question  is  not  whether 
Germany  wished  for  war ;  it  has  been  contended 
by  the  Chancellor,  and  perhaps  with  truth,  that 
he  did  all  in  his  power  to  avoid  war.  It  is  a  mat- 


INTRODUCTION  9 

ter  of  faith  among  the  German  Nation  that  the 
Emperor  was  in  1914,  as  always,  peculiarly 
averse  from  war.  Let  us  assume  that  these  con- 
tentions are  true.  There  still  remains  the  undis- 
puted fact  that,  though  Germany  may  have 
wished  to  avoid  war,  the  one  condition  on  which 
she  would  preserve  peace  was  that  she  should  be 
allowed  to  dictate  to  the  whole  of  Europe  the 
conditions  on  which  peace  could  be  maintained. 
The  real  accusation  against  Germany  is  that  she 
attempted  to  use  the  fear  inspired  by  her  great 
military  power  and  her  alliance  with  Austria- 
Hungary,  to  put  herself  in  a  position  in  which 
her  preponderance  over  Europe  would  have  been 
practically  assured. 

The  general  custom  of  Europe  is  that  when  a 
diplomatic  question  arises  which  affects  Europe 
as  a  whole,  and  in  particular  when  this  is  one  in 
which  there  is  a  conflict  of  interests  between  two 
great  powers,  neither  shall  proceed  to  military 
action  or  take  any  irrevocable  step  without 
first  consulting  and  informing  the  other  powers, 
her  friends  or  allies  ( for  in  Europe  all  states  are 
in  principle  friends  or  allies),  and  shall  certainly 
not  proceed  to  military  action  until  every  effort 
has  been  made  by  negotiation  and  conference  to 
find  a  friendly  settlement.  The  whole  diplomatic 
history  of  Europe  since  1815  is  an  illustration  of 
this  truth.  If  this  rule  were  disregarded,  it  is 
scarcely  too  much  to  say  that  there  is  not  a  year 
in  which  a  great  war  would  not  have  broken  out. 


io  THE    ISSUE 

Now,  in  this  case  Germany  and  Austria  deliber- 
ately, and  on  principle,  violated  this  rule.  They 
laid  down  the  proposition  that  if  Austria  went 
to  war  with  Serbia,  it  was  a  local  matter  in  which 
the  rest  of  Europe  was  not  concerned.  They 
knew,  and  it  can  be  shown  from  their  own  state- 
ments that  they  knew,  that  this  was  a  proposition 
which  could  not  be  willingly  accepted  by  Russia, 
a  proposition,  that  is,  which  could  only  be  en- 
forced either  by  the  sword  or  by  the  threat  of 
war.  They  knew  that  it  raised  in  the  acutest  form 
fundamental  questions  of  Russian  interest.  They 
knew  that  for  more  than  a  hundred  years  it  had 
been  understood  that  if  either  Russia  or  Austria 
took  a  step  forward  in  the  Balkans,  they  would 
at  once  meet  the  opposition  of  the  other  power, 
and  they  knew  that  just  because  of  this,  either 
state,  whenever  it  proposed  to  take  action,  had 
always  consulted  the  other  beforehand.  This 
had  again  and  again  been  done  by  Russia.  The 
whole  history  of  the  negotiations  preceding  the 
Crimean  War  and  of  those  preceding  the  Russo- 
Turkish  War  of  1877,  illustrates  this.  On  both 
occasions  Russia  had,  by  a  preliminary  under- 
standing with  Austria,  to  clear  the  way  before 
she  went  to  war  with  Turkey.  If  at  that  time 
Russia  had  brought  military  pressure  to  bear, 
either  on  Rumania  or  on  Turkey,  Austria  must 
at  once  have  protected  her  interests  by  mobilisa- 
tion or  by  war,  unless  she  had  been  consulted 
beforehand  by  Russia. 


INTRODUCTION  n 

Now  in  this  case  Germany  and  Austria  deliber- 
ately, and  on  principle,  violated  this  rule;  know- 
ing as  they  did  that  the  Austrian  action  raised 
in  the  acutest  form  fundamental  questions  of 
Russian  interest,  they  claimed  for  Austria  the 
right  to  take  what  action  they  chose,  and  laid 
down  the  cardinal  principle  that  no  other  power 
was  to  be  consulted;  that  is,  they  eliminated 
Europe  from  a  question  in  regard  to  which  the 
whole  of  European  diplomacy  had  been  most 
concerned.  It  matters  not  in  the  least  whether 
the  Austrian  demands  were  legitimate  or  not; 
what  does  matter  is  that  if  their  action  had  been 
allowed  to  go  forward  unopposed,  the  principle 
would  have  been  accepted  that  Germany  and 
Austria  were  themselves  the  sole  judges  of  their 
action  on  matters  of  general  import,  and  they 
would  have  claimed  and  secured  a  privileged 
position,  the  result  of  which  would  have  been  that 
the  rest  of  Europe  would  have  had  to  remain  im- 
passive whenever  German  interests  were  involved. 

It  is  this,  then,  which  was  the  occasion  of  the 
war,  and  as  it  was  the  occasion,  so  the  avowed 
object  is  that  at  the  end  Germany  shall  emerge 
with  such  increased  strength  that  she  can,  with 
impunity,  defy  the  united  opinion  of  Europe. 

This  object  will  be  attained,  of  course,  if  Ger- 
many is  victorious,  but  it  will  also  be  attained  if, 
as  a  few  writers  in  England  and  some  among 
neutral  countries  suggest,  the  Allies  acquiesce  in 
a  draw. 


12  THE    ISSUE 

As  to  a  complete  victory  of  Germany,  the 
results  are  so  obvious  that  it  is  scarcely  worth 
the  labour  to  explain  them.  Moreover,  a  com- 
plete victory  such  as  they  anticipated  is  now 
clearly  out  of  the  question.  None  the  less,  it  may 
be  worth  while  to  give  in  a  few  words  what  the 
result  of  this  would  have  been.  It  is.  desirable 
to  do  so  because  it  is  perhaps  not  easy  for  many 
to  realise  what  would  have  been  meant  by  it.  We 
are  so  accustomed  to  the  Europe  which  we  know, 
to  the  Europe  which  consists  of  a  number  of  in- 
dependent states,  differing,  indeed,  in  power,  but 
equal  in  dignity  and  each  enjoying  full  and  com- 
plete independence,  that  we  are  accustomed  to 
think  that  this  state  of  things,  which  has  in  fact 
existed  for  four  hundred  years,  must  continue  to 
exist  for  all  time.  And  yet  the  history  of  the 
past  tells  us  that  great  and  fundamental  changes 
have  occurred  and  may  occur  again  in  future. 

Now,  a  full  German  victory  would  undoubtedly 
have  meant  that  in  some  form  or  other  all  the 
peoples  inhabiting  the  central  portion  of  the 
continent  of  Europe,  the  peoples  we  know  as  the 
Belgians,  the  Dutch,  the  Danes,  the  Poles,  and 
the  Swiss,  would  have  been  brought  into  the  Ger- 
man system.  It  would  not  have  been  in  the  least 
necessary  that  they  should  have  been  incorpo- 
rated in  the  Empire.  It  is  quite  possible  that 
they  might  have  continued  to  exist  as  independ- 
ent autonomous  states  ruled  over  by  families 
allied  to  the  German  princely  houses ;  this  is  the 


INTRODUCTION  13 

way  in  which,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  great  empires 
have  been  formed,  whether  by  the  Romans  or  by 
the  English  in  India.  The  student  of  ancient  his- 
tory will  remember  for  how  long  the  republics 
of  Greece  and  the  dynasties  of  Asia  continued  to 
enjoy  a  nominal  freedom,  while  they  were  in  fact 
completely  subject  to  the  will  of  the  Roman 
State,  and  we  know  how,  at  the  present  day,  the 
Indian  Princes  are  still  recognised  as  sovereign 
rulers,  though  they  are  incapable  of  independent 
international  action.  Now  a  German  victory 
would  have  meant  that  the  central  part  of  the 
continent  of  Europe,  from  the  mouth  of  the 
Dniester  to  the  English  Channel,  would  have 
been  brought  into  the  same  relation  to  Germany 
that  the  subject  states  were  to  Rome.  There 
would  have  been  no  one  who  could  have  ventured 
to  disobey  the  orders  issued  from  Berlin. 

An  empire  of  this  kind  is,  of  course,  not  com- 
plete in  a  day ;  there  would  have  been  opposition, 
and  we  can  be  quite  sure  that  a  high-spirited 
race,  such  as  the  Magyars,  would  have  been  the 
first  to  rebel  against  a  power  which  they  them- 
selves had  helped  to  establish ;  the  final  subjuga- 
tion of  the  Bohemians  and  the  South  Slavs  would 
not  have  been  completed  without  some  further 
trouble;  there  would  have  been  disturbances, 
perhaps  serious  disturbances,  which  could  not 
have  been  put  down  without  bloodshed.  But 
these  would  not  have  been  so  much  wars  as  what 
the  Romans  called  "  tumultus  " ;  they  would 


14  THE    ISSUE 

have  been  akin  to  the  Indian  Mutiny  or  the  Irish 
Rebellion  of  1798,  or  the  risings  in  Poland,  and 
if  there  had  been  no  foreign  assistance  to  look  to, 
however  serious  they  were,  the  ultimate  result 
would  have  been  certain  from  the  beginning. 
Nothing  is  rarer  than  a  successful  rebellion; 
revolutions  seldom  succeed  unless  they  are  helped 
by  weakness  in  the  governing  authority,  or  by 
disaffection  in  the  army.  The  history  of  the  year 
1848  in  Austria  and  Germany  shows  how  help- 
less, even  in  the  most  favourable  circumstances, 
is  a  popular  rising,  and  if  this  was  true  even 
in  the  old  days,  how  much  more  so  will  it  be 
in  the  future,  against  a  Government  which  has 
the  sole  control  of  all  the  modern  machinery  of 
warfare. 

Against  a  united  Central  Europe,  the  outlying 
states,  France,  Italy,  Spain,  Scandinavia,  would 
be  helpless,  and  a  Europe  so  organised  would  be 
able  so  to  strengthen  and  defend  the  frontiers 
that  an  attack  even  from  Russia  would  be  cause 
for  little  apprehension.  In  a  Europe  so  organ- 
ised wars  would  cease,  and  they  would  cease  for 
the  only  reason  which  would  ever  stop  them,  the 
concentration  of  all  military  power  in  the  hands 
of  a  single  Government  so  powerful  that  her 
position  is  unassailable.  Europe  would  have  had 
the  Pax  Germanica. 

The  difficulty  of  visualising  the  results  of  such 
a  growth  of  German  power  is  that  we  are  likely 
to  assume  that  men  will  continue  to  be  governed 


INTRODUCTION  15 

by  the  beliefs  and  principles  in  which  we  our- 
selves have  grown  up.  Among  these  the  greatest 
is  the  pride  in  the  freedom  of  one's  country. 
But  let  us  not  deceive  ourselves :  had  the  Allies 
been  defeated,  had  a  Central  Europe  of  this  kind 
been  established,  this  principle  would  not  have 
survived;  it  would  have  lingered  for  one  or  two 
generations.  Independence  would  have  been  the 
dream  of  romantic  men  of  letters;  it  would  have 
been  like  the  traditional  republicanism  under  the 
Roman  Empire,  or  like  that  of  independence 
among  the  Greek  States  after  having  been  con- 
quered by  Macedonia;  but  as  a  real,  active, 
strong,  controlling  political  influence,  it  would 
have  waned  away  and  died,  the  results  of  the 
great  war  would  be  irremediable.  King  Albert 
and  Joffre  and  the  Serbian  peasants  would  in  the 
history  of  the  world  have  taken  their  places  side 
by  side  with  the  other  heroes  of  lost  causes,  with 
Sartorius  and  Demosthenes  and  Hannibal  and 
Vercingetorix  and  Cato  and  Llewellyn  and 
Schamyl  and  Kruger.  But  the  world  would  have 
gone  on,  and  generations  would  have  arisen  to 
whom  political  freedom  would  have  been  but  a 
memory  and  a  dream.  The  Gauls  and  the  Greeks 
and  the  Sicilians  and  the  Jews  were  conquered 
by  Rome,  and  the  time  came  when  their  chains 
ceased  to  gall  them  and  they  ceased  to  regret  the 
uncertain  days  of  the  past.  They  had  order, 
comfort,  security,  they  had  no  more  war;  they 
had  civilisation  and  personal  freedom  and  re- 


16  THE    ISSUE 

ligion,  and  they  ceased  to  know  that  political 
freedom  was  no  longer  theirs. 

And  so  it  might  be  again,  and  so  it  would  have 
been  had  Germany  been  successful  in  the  war. 

It  is  the  attainment  of  this  new  Europe  which 
is  either  expressly  stated  or  implied  in  all  the 
German  suggestions  for  terms  of  peace  analysed 
in  this  volume,  whether  given  in  the  documents 
of  the  six  associations,  in  the  picture  of  Central 
Europe  drawn  for  us  by  Naumann,  or  in  the 
peace  terms  as  stated  by  the  Chancellor.  For 
all  have  this  in  common,  that  they  demand  that 
Germany  shall  come  out  of  the  war  so  much 
stronger  as  to  be  able  to  maintain  herself  against 
the  whole  of  Europe,  and  the  Chancellor  goes  so 
far  as  to  tell  us  in  so  many  words  that  we  must 
have  a  "  new  Europe,  free  from  the  trammels 
of  the  balance  of  power." 

As  against  this  programme  an  Englishman 
will  be  satisfied  with  the  reasons  for  which  he 
entered  on  the  war  and  the  objects  with  which  he 
is  continuing  it.  For  these  are  not  the  selfish  and 
exclusive  domination  of  a  single  state  or  nation, 
however  eminent  in  the  arts  of  peace  and  war, 
but  the  free  and  equal  progress  of  all  together  in 
a  generous  rivalry.  For  he  knows  that  diversity 
is  the  condition  of  life,  and  rivalry  and  conflict 
the  condition  of  progress.  We  want  and  we  will 
have,  neither  for  ourselves  nor  for  others,  this 
partition  of  the  world  into  aggressive  and  mili- 
tary world-states,  least  of  all  will  we  have  Eu- 


INTRODUCTION  17 

rope,  which  is  the  home  and  still  is  the  hope  of 
civilisation  and  freedom,  subjected  to  the  deaden- 
ing rule  of  a  single  power.  We  need  feel  no 
chagrin  that  we  are  fighting,  not  to  create  some- 
thing new,  but  to  maintain  the  old,  for  we  know 
what  the  world  owes  to  the  secular  rivalry  and 
juxtaposition  of  these  free  European  races, 
France  and  Spain  and  Holland  and  Italy  and 
Flanders. 

For  what  is  the  meaning  of  the  old  Europe? 
At  bottom  it  is  the  mutual  respect  for  each  other's 
individuality,  the  consciousness  of  the  limits  set 
by  reciprocal  obligations,  the  recognition  that,  if 
there  are  to  be  wars,  their  methods  will  be  deter- 
mined by  common  agreement,  and  that  the  victor 
will,  in  the  enforcement  of  his  will,  have  to  be 
bound  by  the  general  will  of  the  political  com- 
munity to  which  he  belongs.  This  old  Europe 
was  founded  on  a  conception  of  justice  and  reci- 
procity, and  it  is  for  this  reason  that  Germany 
repudiates  it,  for  she  understands  neither.  Jus- 
tice and  reciprocity  —  which  are  in  fact  identi- 
cal, for  they  mean  that  there  shall  be  a  measure 
to  the  exactions  demanded  by  the  strong  from 
the  weak,  that  as  a  state  measures  so  it  shall  be 
meted  to  it  again  —  they  are  the  union  of  the 
weak  against  the  strong,  which  is  the  only  se- 
curity against  the  tyrant  state. 

And -when  Bernard  Shaw  and  Bethmann-Holl- 
weg  and  Bertrand  Russell  tell  us  that  we  must 
be  done  with  the  doctrine  of  the  "  Balance  of 


i8  THE    ISSUE 

Power,"  I  can  only  marvel  at  the  shallowness 
and  superficiality  of  a  criticism  which  does  not 
trouble  to  look  below  the  diplomatic  formula  for 
the  permanent  truth.  A  strange  trio.  The  Ger- 
man I  can  understand;  he,  at  least,  would  use 
his  sophism  as  a  bait  to  win  the  suffrages  of  the 
unwary,  while  Germany,  as  they  sat  talking  and 
arguing,  established  the  dominion  which  would 
indeed  remove  for  all  time  the  anarchy  that  they 
deplore  and  would  bring  peace  to  Europe,  but 
would  do  so  by  subjecting  all  to  a  single  will. 

So  much  for  a  German  victory.  But  it  will  be 
said  that  no  one  now  fears  this.  The  German 
plans  are  already  doomed  to  frustration  and  their 
hopes  to  disappointment.  They  have  not  suc- 
ceeded in  conquering  Europe  and  they  will  not. 
Everywhere  they  are  on  the  defensive,  and  slowly 
they  are  being  driven  back.  Why,  then,  the 
conclusion  is  drawn,  not  stop  the  war  at  once? 
So  far  as  the  German  Government  is  concerned, 
there  can  be  no  doubt  that  they  would  gladly 
welcome  any  terms  of  peace  which  would  enable 
them  to  come  before  their  people  without  a 
crushing  and  irremediable  defeat.  Is  it  necessary 
to  go  on  ?  Admirable  people  in  neutral  countries, 
in  America,  in  Holland  and  Scandinavia,  are 
forming  societies  and  publishing  reviews  with  the 
object  of  contriving  to  end  a  war  which,  in  their 
eyes,  has  ceased  to  have  any  definite  object. 
They  have  found  even  in  England  some  few  who 
welcome  these  suggestions.  It  is  said  that 


INTRODUCTION  19 

Germany  would  be  willing  to  evacuate  Belgium 
and  France,  and  if  she  has  done  this  that  is  all 
that  we  have  to  demand.  They  talk  of  the 
"  suicide  of  Europe,"  but  they  do  not  see  that 
the  end  of  Europe  would  come,  not  by  the  con- 
tinuance of  the  war,  but  by  a  cessation  before 
the  ends  had  been  completely  attained. 

The  position  is  a  plausible  one,  but  let  us  look 
the  facts  clearly  in  the  face.  Supposing  that 
peace  were  to  be  made  now,  —  peace  made  be- 
fore the  war  had  been  fought  to  a  conclusion, 
with  Germany  still  untouched  and  the  German 
armies  unconquered,  —  what  would  be  the  re- 
sult? The  German  Nation,  recognising  that 
they  had  not  attained  the  ends  which  were  at- 
tributed to  them,  would  persist  in  denying  that 
they  ever  had  had  these  before  them  at  the  be- 
ginning of  the  war.  It  would  continue  to  be 
asserted  in  Germany  for  all  time  that  the  war 
was  in  truth  a  defensive  warfare,  forced  upon 
Germany  by  a  hostile  coalition  framed  for  the 
express  purpose  of  destroying  the  Empire  and 
annihilating  their  power.  In  this  war  they  had 
been  faced  by  a  coalition  as  great  or  greater 
than  the  final  coalition  before  which  Napoleon 
fell.  Confronted  by  Russia,  France,  and  Eng- 
land, together  with  Italy,  Belgium,  Serbia,  Mon- 
tenegro, and  Rumania,  they  would  boast,  and 
justly  boast,  that  they  had  held  their  own;  Ger- 
many would  have  been  unconquered  and  thereby 
shown  to  have  been  unconquerable.  The  Ger- 


20  THE    ISSUE 

mans  are  more  moved  than  we  are  by  historical 
analogies;  long  before  the  war  began  they  re- 
ferred, almost  with  pleasurable  anticipation,  to 
the  prospect  of  a  new  Seven  Years'  War,  in 
which  the  Germany  of  Bismarck  would  have  to 
fight  against  the  whole  of  Europe,  as  the  Prussia 
of  Frederick  had  had  to  do.  They  recalled  also 
the  fact  that,  though  Frederick  was  again  and 
again  defeated,  he  was  never  conquered,  and 
that  the  power  of  resistance  which  Prussia 
showed  was  the  basis  on  which  two  generations 
later  Prussian  expansion  was  built  up.  So  they 
anticipated  it  would  be  again.  The  great  coali- 
tion would  be  formed,  and  it  was  formed;  Ger- 
many would  meet  undaunted  millions  of  enemies, 
and  she  has  done  so;  against  the  bulwark  of 
German  breasts  the  rage  of  the  enemy  was  help- 
less. Peace  would  be  made  and  Germany  would 
emerge  from  the  conflict,  whatever  her  losses 
might  have  been,  infinitely  greater  and  stronger 
than  she  had  entered  it.  She  would  have  with- 
stood the  trial  by  fire  and  by  sword,  and  with- 
stood it  successfully. 

Germany  would  have  withstood,  and  with- 
stood successfully,  the  greatest  coalition  ever 
formed.  They  would  have  known  that  when 
another  war  broke  out,  they  would  enter  on  it 
relatively  stronger  than  they  had  been  before, 
and  their  enemies  weaker.  For,  let  there  be  no 
mistake  about  it  —  if  the  present  coalition  does 
not  achieve  complete  and  absolute  success,  it  will 


INTRODUCTION  21 

never  again  be  established.  Supposing  it  came 
about  that  the  Germans  evacuated  Belgium  and 
France,  not  because  they  had  been  driven  out, 
but  only  as  the  result  of  negotiations,  and  per- 
haps in  return  for  the  restoration  of  some  of  the 
German  colonies,  does  anyone  believe  that  on  a 
future  similar  occasion  Belgium  or  France  would 
be  in  a  position  to  defy  Germany?  It  would  be 
impossible  for  them  to  do  so,  depending  upon 
the  support  of  England.  It  would  be  clearly 
written  in  history  that,  after  England  had  put 
forward  efforts,  far  greater  than  anyone  had 
thought  to  be  possible,  she  had  still  failed.  Bel- 
gium would  still,  as  before,  be  subject  at  any 
moment  to  be  overrun  by  the  German  armies, 
and  the  experience  she  had  once  endured  wrould 
inevitably  deter  her  from  incurring  a  similar 
risk  again.  Would  Holland,  with  the  example 
of  Belgium  before  her,  ever  venture  seriously  to 
oppose  German  demands?  Would  Switzerland? 
Would  Denmark? 

If  peace  were  made  by  negotiation  before 
Germany  were  defeated,  —  it  matters  not  what 
the  terms  of  peace  were,  —  on  the  continent  of 
Europe  and  within  her  own  domain  she  would 
have  gained  the  essential  thing.  Whatever  were 
the  fate  of  Austria,  Germany  would  have  an  in- 
crease of  her  effective  power,  for  no  diplomatic 
arrangements  could  eventually  prevent  the  prac- 
tical absorption  of  Austria  in  Germany.  This 
alliance  would  continue,  but  does  anyone  believe 


22  THE    ISSUE 

that  the  alliance  of  England  and  of  France,  of 
Italy  and  of  Russia  could  permanently  be  con- 
tinued in  the  form  of  effective  military  and  eco- 
nomic cooperation? 

A  drawn  war  would  therefore  be  a  victory  for 
Germany.  It  would  be.  a  victory  for  Germany  as 
complete  as  was  the  Second  Punic  War  for 
Rome,  and  Germany  in  the  future  would  be  able 
to  consolidate  her  position  upon  the  Continent 
and  prepare  for  the  next  war,  which  so  many 
German  writers  are  now  anticipating,  a  war 
which  would  be  directed  against  England,  but 
one  in  which  England  would  not  be  able  to  de- 
pend upon  the  help  of  her  present  allies.  And 
the  next  war  would  be  one  in  which,  even  though 
Holland  and  Belgium  retained  in  theory  their 
complete  independence  and  self-determination, 
at  the  first  onslaught  they  would  be  crumpled  up 
before  the  German  armies,  and  the  attack  upon 
England  would  be  made,  not  only  from  the  mouth 
of  the  Weser  and  the  Elbe,  but  also  from  the 
Rhine  and  the  Scheldt. 

An  inconclusive  peace  would  in  fact  imply 
two  things,  the  increased  power  of  Germany  and 
the  certainty  of  further  war  between  Germany 
and  Great  Britain.  But  in  addition  to  this,  it 
would  mean  that  after  the  war  Germany  would 
be  even  more  convinced  than  she  was  before,  of 
the  essential  value  of  that  which  we  call  "  mili- 
tarism " ;  it  would  to  them  have  been  proved  that 
it  was  by  the  army  and  the  army  alone  that  she 


INTRODUCTION  23 

had  been  saved,  and  therefore  that  it  was  on  the 
army  alone  she  must  continue  to  depend  for  her 
existence  and  security  in  the  future.  In  the  days 
of  peace  which  followed,  she  would  continue  as 
before  to  subordinate  all  her  institutions  to  the 
perfecting  of  her  military  power.  If,  as  is  indeed 
the  case,  the  ultimate  object  of  the  war  is  the 
destruction  of  militarism,  this  can  only  be  at- 
tained by  eradicating  the  spirit  of  militarism  from 
the  heart  of  the  German  people,  and  there  is  no 
other  way  in  which  this  can  be  done  than  by  the 
defeat  of  the  German  army. 

But  let  us  suppose,  on  the  other  hand,  that  the 
war  is  carried  on  to  its  inevitable  termination, 
that  the  resistance  of  the  German  armies  is  broken 
down  and  the  spirit  of  the  German  people  is 
broken  by  the  effect  of  the  blockade.  A  conclu- 
sion of  this  kind  would  make  clear  to  the  Ger- 
man Nation  in  the  only  way  in  which  it  could  be 
made,  that  immeasurable  ambition  inevitably 
brings  with  it  Nemesis.  They  would  learn,  what 
every  other  country  in  Europe  has  learnt,  that  it 
is  impossible  to  defy  with  impunity  the  united 
voice  of  Europe. 

Men  talk  much  of  the  terms  of  peace:  it  is 
not  the  terms  of  peace  which  are  important; 
what  is  important  is  victory.  Let  those  who 
doubt  this  study  the  settlement  of  1815.  Then, 
not  only  was  France  defeated,  but  the  armies  of 
the  victors  twice  in  twelve  months  occupied 
Paris.  The  French  learned,  and  they  have  never 


24  THE    ISSUE 

forgotten,  the  lesson  of  the  retribution  which 
comes  to  a  nation  which  would  allow  itself  to  be 
dazzled  by  the  deeds  of  a  Napoleon.  But  we 
must  notice  this  also,  that  it  was  the  very  com- 
pleteness of  the  victory  and  the  complete  anni- 
hilation for  the  time  of  French  military  power 
which  enabled  the  Allies,  in  the  terms  of  peace, 
to  leave  France  as  powerful  and  as  united  as  she 
had  been  twenty- five  years  ago  before  the  begin- 
ning of  the  great  war. 

It  might  be  said  by  any  German  into  whose 
hands  this  book  came,  that  if  you  contend  that  a 
complete  victory  is  necessary  for  the  security  of 
the  Allies,  Germany  also  may  justly  maintain 
that  this  is  true  for  her  also,  and  that  she  has  to 
protect  herself  against  the  "  schemes  of  annihila- 
tion "  with  which  she  is  threatened.  In  doing  so, 
he  would  but  be  following  the  lead  of  the  Chan- 
cellor and  the  other  authorities  quoted  in  this 
book,  who  again  and  again  maintain  that  all  that 
they  demand  is  that  which  is  necessary  for  the 
defence  of  their  country  against  the  threatened 
annihilation. 

To  this  we  might  well  answer  that  it  is  not 
England  which  annihilates  states  or  peoples;  if 
we  wish  for  illustrations  of  annihilation  we  must 
go  to  those  parts  of  Europe  in  which  not  Eng- 
land, but  the  German  States  are  supreme,  to 
Poland  and  Bohemia,  to  Serbia  and  Belgium. 
Since  modern  Europe  began  there  is  no  single 


INTRODUCTION  25 

state  in  Europe  of  which  it  can  be  said  that  it  has 
been  deprived  of  its  natural  territories,  or  that 
its  internal  government  has  been  permanently 
warped  by  English  supremacy. 

But  apart  from  this,  the  answer  of  any  Eng- 
lishman is  simple  when  he  hears  the  statement 
that  we  are  threatening  Germany  with  annihila- 
tion. There  is  one  person,  and  one  only  in  this 
country,  who  is  qualified  to  express  authorita- 
tively the  objects  with  which  England  has 
entered  the  war,  and  those  which  she  puts  before 
herself  for  attainment  in  the  case  that  victory 
attends  her  arms.  Mr.  Asquith  has  done  this  in 
words  which  it  is  scarcely  necessary  to  repeat : 

We  shall  never  sheathe  the  sword  which  we 
have  not  lightly  drawn  until  Belgium  recovers 
in  full  measure  all  and  more  than  all  that  she 
has  sacrificed,  until  France  is  adequately  secured 
against  the  menace  of  aggression,  until  the  rights 
of  the  smaller  nationalities  of  Europe  are  placed 
upon  an  unassailable  foundation,  and  until  the 
military  domination  of  Prussia  is  wholly  and 
finally  destroyed. 

And  when  the  last  sentence,  as  he  himself 
points  out,  was  first  misquoted  by  the  Chancellor 
and  then  its  obvious  meaning  and  intention  dis- 
torted, he  explains  again  the  object  in  language 
which  cannot  be  misinterpreted: 

Great  Britain,  and  France  also,  entered  the  war 
not  to  strangle  Germany,  not  to  wipe  her  off  the 


26  THE    ISSUE 

map  of  Europe,  not  to  destroy  or  mutilate  her 
national  life,  certainly  not  to  interfere  with  (to 
use  the  Chancellor's  language)  "  the  free  exercise 
of  her  peaceful  endeavours."  .  .  .  On  several  oc- 
casions in  the  last  ten  years  Germany  had  given 
evidence  of  her  intention  to  dictate  to  Europe 
under  threat  of  war,  and  in  violating  the  neutral- 
ity of  Belgium  she  proved  that  she  meant  to  es- 
tablish her  ascendancy,  even  at  the  price  of  a 
universal  war  and  of  tearing  up  the  basis  of 
European  policy  as  established  by  treaty.  The 
purpose  of  the  Allies  in  the  war  is  to  defeat  that 
attempt,  and  thereby  pave  the  way  for  an  inter- 
national system,  which  will  secure  the  principle  of 
equal  rights  for  all  civilised  states. 

As  a  result  of  the  war  we  intend  to  establish 
the  principle  that  international  problems  must 
be  handled  by  free  peoples,  and  that  this  settle- 
ment shall  no  longer  be  hampered  and  swayed  by 
the  overmastering  dictation  of  a  Government 
controlled  by  a  military  caste.  That  is  what  I 
mean  by  the  destruction  of  the  military  domina- 
tion of  Prussia :  nothing  more,  but  nothing  less. 

The  whole  of  this  book  is  in  fact  a  comment 
on  and  an  expansion  of  these  words,  to  which  in- 
deed it  might  appear  that  nothing  had  to  be 
added. 

It  would  be  impertinent  at  the  present  time  to 
enter  on  any  discussion  as  to  the  details  of  the 
peace  terms  which  would  be  demanded  supposing 
the  Allies  were  victorious  in  the  war.  And  there 
is  something  profoundly  undignified  in  declaring 


INTRODUCTION  27 

what  we  propose  to  do  before  we  know  whether 
we  shall  have  the  power  to  carry  it  out.  It  is, 
however,  to  be  regretted  that  some  French  and 
English  writers  have  given  their  support  to  plans 
which,  if  there  were  any  chance  of  their  being 
adopted  by  the  Allied  Governments,  might  justly 
be  interpreted  as  bringing  about  the  annihilation 
of  Germany,  the  partition  of  the  country,  the 
overthrow  of  the  Empire.  For  this  reason  it 
may  be  well,  even  during  the  stress  of  war,  to 
suggest  that  whatever  the  result  may  be,  it  is 
essential  to  keep  clearly  in  sight  the  cardinal 
principles  of  European  policy. 

These  are  two.  The  first  is  that  Europe  is  and 
should  remain  divided  between  independent  na- 
tional states.  The  second  that,  subject  to  the 
condition  that  they  do  not  threaten  or  interfere 
with  the  security  of  other  states,  each  country 
should  have  full  and  complete  control  over  its 
own  internal  affairs. 

From  the  first  springs  what  I  call  the  Magna 
Carta  of  Europe,  the  doctrine  that  the  soil  of 
Europe  is  not  subject  to  conquest  and  annexation. 

There  can  be  no  permanent  settlement  of  Euro- 
pean discord  until  this  is  generally  accepted. 
The  truth  of  it  has  been  taught  during  the  last 
hundred  years  of  diplomacy.  Since  the  time  of 
the  Reformation,  nearly  every  war  has  been 
fought  for  the  acquisition  of  territory.  Wars 
will  always  continue  so  long  as  there  is  a  prospect 
that  success  will  enable  the  victor  to  extend  the 


28  THE    ISSUE 

bounds  of  his  own  country.  Permanent  concord 
can  only  come  when  it  is  recognised  that  every 
state  has  the  right  to  be  protected  against  dis- 
ruption by  the  cooperation  of  all  the  others.  If 
at  the  end  of  this  war  the  victory  is  used  as  vic- 
tory has  so  often  been  used  in  the  past,  then  there 
evidently  will  be  laid  the  foundations  for  a  fur- 
ther struggle  in  the  future. 

To  this  maxim,  however,  the  Allies  must  be 
faithful  in  victory,  as  they  would  claim  that  it 
should  be  observed  were  they  defeated.  Just  as 
we  repudiate  the  claim  of  Germany  to  annex  any 
part  of  the  soil  of  France  or  Belgium  on  the  right 
of  conquest,  so  we  cannot  claim  to  annex  or  con- 
quer any  part  of  the  soil  of  Germany.  However 
complete  is  the  defeat  of  the  German  army,  how- 
ever far  the  Allied  troops  penetrate  on  to  Ger- 
man soil,  the  warnings  of  centuries  must  guard 
us  against  the  irreparable  error  of  attempting  to 
separate  from  Germany  any  districts  which  are 
clearly  and  without  dispute  German. 

This  maxim  is  easy  to  state  in  general,  but  the 
application  is  not  so  simple.  It  has  to  be  deter- 
mined what  are  the  natural  frontiers  of  each 
nation.  When  that  has  been  done  they  must  be 
assigned  and  guaranteed  by  the  general  agree- 
ment of  Europe. 

What,  then,  are  the  natural  limits  of  Germany  ? 
What  is  German  soil?  Of  France  we  may  say 
with  certainty  that  there  is  not  perhaps  a  single 
village  which  would  claim  to  be  transferred  to 


INTRODUCTION  29 

another  state.  The  annexations  of  1861  in  Nice 
and  in  Savoy  have  been  ratified  in  the  only  way 
in  which  annexation  can  be  ratified,  by  the 
willing  acquiescence  of  the  inhabitants.  We 
know  what  are  the  natural  limits  of  Spain,  and, 
as  a  result  of  the  war,  those  of  Italy  will  also 
have  to  be  determined.  But  what  about  Ger- 
many? 

So  much  we  may  say,  that  nine-tenths  of  what 
is  now  included  in  the  Empire  is  and  will  always 
remain  German.  Berlin  and  Cologne,  Hamburg 
and  Carlsruhe,  Breslau  and  Aachen  and  Mainz, 
as  to  these  there  is  no  doubt.  But  there  are 
border  districts,  Alsace  and  Lorraine,  the  north 
of  Schleswig,  parts  of  the  Province  of  Posen,  of 
which  this  cannot  be  said.  Of  these  at  least  we 
may  say  that  there  is  a  question  involved  in  them 
which  may  properly  be  brought  before  the  Tri- 
bunal of  Europe.  Of  these,  but  of  no  others. 

It  is  useful  to  recall  the  title  by  which  Ger- 
many holds  these  doubtful  districts.  The  north 
of  Schleswig  is  held  by  direct  and  cynical  viola- 
tion of  the  Treaty  of  Prague,  to  which  Prussia 
had  been  herself  a  partner.  It  had  been  deter- 
mined by  this  that  Schleswig  should  be  divided, 
and  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  northern  and 
border  districts  should  be  allowed  themselves  to 
determine  by  their  votes  whether  they  should  be- 
come Prussian  or  Danish.  This  clause  was  in- 
serted in  the  treaty  between  Prussia  and  Austria 
by  the  desire  of  the  Emperor  Napoleon  III,  who 


3o  THE    ISSUE 

of  course  was  the  chief  champion  in  Europe  of 
the  rights  of  the  population  to  determine  their 
own  destiny.  It  was  never  carried  out.  The  fall 
of  the  Empire,  combined  with  the  events  of  1870 
and  1871,  deprived  France  both  of  the  will  and 
of  the  power  to  require  its  enforcement,  and  in 
1878,  when  the  new  alliance  was  formed  between 
Germany  and  Austria,  it  was  agreed  that  this 
clause  should  be  allowed  to  lapse.  It  is  clearly 
open  to  Europe  to  require  that  it  should  be  re- 
vived, and  against  this  no  valid  objection  can  be 
raised  on  the  ground  that  to  do  so  would  be  an 
injustice  to  Germany. 

Alsace  and  Lorraine  are,  of  course,  held  in 
virtue  of  the  Treaty  of  Frankfort.  It  is  a  treaty 
imposed  on  France  by  the  power  of  the  sword, 
and  one  in  which  Europe  as  a  whole  was  not  con- 
sulted. The  Germans  could  claim  on  their  side 
historical  right ;  they  deliberately  refrained  from 
appealing  for  their  sanction  to  the  will  of  the 
population.  With  regard  to  one  portion,  Metz 
and  districts  in  Lorraine,  they  were  seized  with  a 
cynical  disregard  of  everything  but  the  right  of 
the  stronger  and  strategical  reasons.  The  Treaty 
of  Frankfort  was  imposed  by  the  sword,  and  it 
can  be  dissolved  by  the  same  instrument  by  which 
it  was  created.  But  it  is  essential  that  the  ultimate 
possession,  whatever  it  may  be,  should  be  one  de- 
termined not  merelyibetween  France  and  Germany, 
but  agreed  to  and  ratified  by  Europe  as  a  whole. 

The    question    of    the    Polish    provinces    of 


INTRODUCTION  31 

Prussia  is  from  the  point  of  view  of  international 
relations  more  complicated.  The  present  divi- 
sion of  the  country  derives  from  the  Treaty  of 
Vienna,  arid  received  the  formal  and  definite  sanc- 
tion of  the  assembled  powers  of  Europe.  It  is 
in  fact  the  only  part  of  those  provisions  of  the 
Treaty  of  Vienna,  which  dealt  with  the  countries 
which  had  been  conquered  by  Napoleon,  that  has 
not  yet  been  revised.  The  settlement  for  Ger- 
many and  for  Italy,  for  the  Netherlands  and  for 
Norway  and  Sweden,  has  in  the  course  of  the 
last  hundred  years  been  overthrown.  Norway, 
Belgium,  Germany,  Italy,  have  in  the  process  of 
time  each  attained  the  position  of  a  self-govern- 
ing and  independent  state.  Poland  alone  re- 
mains; and  on  every  ground  of  international 
convenience,  of  public  policy  and  political  equity, 
the  time  has  come  when  that  which  has  been  done 
for  Italy  and  for  Germany  herself  should  also  be 
done  for  the  Poles.  The  difficulties  of  the  task 
will  be  enormous;  but  at  this  moment  there  is 
only  one  point  on  which  it  is  necessary  to  insist, 
and  that  is  that  it  is  as  absurd  to  speak  of  the 
restoration  of  Poland,  even  if  this  includes  the 
separation  of  certain  Polish-speaking  districts 
from  the  German  Empire,  as  the  annihilation  of 
Germany,  as  it  would  have  been  absurd  to  speak  of 
the  creation  of  a  Kingdom  of  the  Belgians  as  the 
annihilation  of  the  Kingdom  of  the  Netherlands 
or  the  emancipation  of  Lombardy  and  Venetia 
as  the  annihilation  of  the  Austrian  Empire. 


32  THE    ISSUE 

The  proposition  that  the  nationality  of  these 
frontier  and  doubtful  districts  should  at  the  end 
of  this  war  come  up  for  reconsideration  is  en- 
tirely consistent  with  the  principle  that  the  policy 
of  Europe  should  be  based  on  the  mutual  recog- 
nition among  national .  states.  Looking  at  the 
matter  without  prejudice  and  without  passion, 
we  may  recognise  that  the  justification  for  this  is 
to  be  found,  not  so  much  in  the  historical  ground 
on  which  they  were  acquired,  but  on  the  facts  of 
the  present  moment.  There  have  been  many 
annexations  in  the  last  hundred  years  which  will 
not  and  cannot  be  revoked.  Lombardy  was  won 
for  Italy  by  the  power  of  the  sword,  and  Holstein 
was  separated  from  Denmark;  if  no  one  sug- 
gests that  this  verdict  should  be  reversed,  the 
reason  is  that  it  was  one  entirely  in  accordance 
with  the  wishes  of  the  population.  Ultimately 
the  fault  of  Germany  is  not  so  much  that  she 
wrested  Alsace  from  France  in  war,  as  that  she 
has  shown  herself  unable  to  win  the  allegiance 
of  the  inhabitants  in  peace.  Over  forty  years 
have  elapsed  since  the  Treaty  of  Frankfort ;  had 
the  result  been  that  the  Alsatians  had  shown 
themselves  willing  and  enthusiastic  adherents  of 
the  German  Empire,  as  the  inhabitants  of  the 
other  border  districts,  Metz  and  Lorraine,  showed 
themselves  loyal  adherents  of  France  after  Louis 
XIV  had  forcibly  annexed  them  to  his  crown, 
then  there  would  have  been  no  claim  for  Europe 
to  interfere.  It  is  notorious  that  this  has  not 


INTRODUCTION  33 

been  the  case.  The  inhabitants  of  the  Province 
of  Posen  have  been  subject  to  the  Kingdom  of 
Prussia  for  a  hundred  years;  there  has  been 
full  opportunity  to  win  over  their  affection  and 
their  loyalty;  the  opportunity  has  been  lost. 

And  if  Germany  —  even  the  German  Social- 
ists —  with  indignation  declaim  against  any  sug- 
gestion for  severing  from  the  Fatherland  any 
portion  of  these  border  districts,  and  if  they  cry 
out  about  the  annihilation  of  Germany,  we  are 
at  least  justified  in  recalling  the  profound  disre- 
gard and  contempt  with  which  the  protests  of 
France  and  the  remonstrances  of  Europe  were 
met  in  1864  and  1871.  The  cry  against  the 
annihilation  of  the  Fatherland  and  the  division 
of  the  country,  so  far  as  it  applies  to  these  dis- 
tricts, comes  with  an  ill  grace  from  a  nation 
which  has  shown  such  complete  indifference  to 
similar  appeals  for  mercy  from  others. 

As  it  is  with  the  determination  of  German 
frontiers,  so  also  with  the  internal  arrangements 
and  constitution  of  Germany.  Suggestions  are 
from  time  to  time  being  made  that  the  Allies 
ought  to  put  before  themselves  the  object  of  un- 
doing the  work  which  was  achieved  in  1866  and 
in  1871,  by  restoring  those  states  which  were 
annexed  by  Prussia  and  by  revising  the  treaties 
under  which  Bavaria  and  the  Southern  States 
gave  their  adherence  to  the  North  German  Fed- 
eration. These  suggestions  seem  outside  the 
scope  of  practical  policy.  It  is  indeed  true  that 


34  THE    ISSUE 

no  action  of  the  Prussian  Government  was  so 
counter  to  every  principle  of  international  moral- 
ity as  the  treatment  of  Hanover.  This  event,  on 
which  English  writers  have  been  strangely  silent, 
forms  a  much  securer  basis  for  criticism  of  Prus- 
sian methods  than  did  the  treatment  of  Schles- 
wig-Holstein.  But  it  is  impossible  to  reverse  the 
verdict  of  history,  for  the  annexation  has  been 
condoned  by  the  only  people  who  have  a  right 
to  be  heard,  and  that  is  by  the  Hanoverians  them- 
selves. The  relations  of  Bavaria  to  Prussia  have 
become  a  matter  of  internal  German  policy  just 
as  much  as  are  those  of  Wales  or  Scotland  to 
England.  On  this  Europe  has  no  claim  to  speak 
unless,  indeed,  there  came  at  any  time  a  cry  for 
help  from  the  Bavarians  themselves. 

M.  Yves  Guyot  has  suggested  in  his  book  The 
Causes  and  Consequences  of  the  War,  and  also  in 
an  article  published  in  The  Nineteenth  Century 
and  After,  that  when  the  time  comes  to  discuss 
terms  of  peace  "  The  seventeen  members  of  the 
Bundesrat  who  represent  Prussia  could  not  be 
admitted  [to  the  Peace  Conference],  for  the  fate 
of  Prussia  cannot  be  determined  by  herself;  it 
must  be  settled  by  the  conquerors."  This  frankly 
seems  to  me  as  absurd  as  it  would  be,  were  Ger- 
many to  have  won  a  complete  victory  in  the  war, 
that  she  should  claim  that  the  British  Empire 
should  be  represented  in  the  Peace  Conference 
by  Wales,  Scotland,  Ireland,  and  the  Dominions, 
but  that  no  representatives  from  England  should 


INTRODUCTION  35 

be  admitted.  On  what  grounds  are  the  inhab- 
itants of  Cologne  and  Diisseldorf,  of  Hesse- 
Kassel,  Hanover  and  Schleswig-Holstein  (I  omit 
the  old  Prussian  provinces)  to  be  debarred  from 
the  opportunity  of  taking  their  part  in  the  con- 
sultations on  which  the  future  welfare  of  Ger- 
many must  depend? 

When  M.  Yves  Guyot  supports  this  and  similar 
suggestions  on  criticisms  made  by  Prince  Biilow 
and  others  that  the  ancient  spirit  of  particularism 
was  not  dead  in  Germany,  he  omits  to  take 
into  consideration  the  result  of  a  three  years'  war. 
Whatever  may  have  been  the  case  before  (and 
as  to  this  there  can,  I  think,  be  no  doubt  that 
Prince  Biilow  and  other  German  critics,  to  a  great 
extent  deliberately  and  for  political  purposes, 
overestimated  the  forces  of  disunion  in  Ger- 
many), there  can  be  no  doubt  that  now,  by  the 
mere  fact  of  the  common  share  which  they  have 
all  taken  in  this  great  conflict,  the  German  Na- 
tion has  been  welded  into  a  complete  and  indis- 
soluble unity  in  the  same  way  in  which  Prussia 
was  so  welded  in  the  Seven  Years'  War. 

We  have  these  two  great  principles, and  they  are 
principles  to  which  the  Allies  have  already  given 
their  adhesion.  To  them  they  must  remain  true. 

It  may  be  objected,  and  it  doubtless  will  be, 
that  in  this  criticism  of  the  suggestions  of  many 
eminent  and  patriotic  writers,  I  am  allowing 
myself  to  be  influenced  by  the  desire  that  there 
should  be  no  humiliation  for  Germany.  As  to 


36  THE    ISSUE 

this  I  can  only  say  that  the  "  humiliation  of 
Germany  "  is  not  an  object  to  be  attained  for  its 
own  sake,  but  only  so  far  as  it  will  lead  to  a  better 
organisation  of  Europe  in  the  future.  Apart 
from  and  beyond  this,  the  "  humiliation  of 
Germany  "  is  certainly  not  worth  the  life  of  a 
single  British  soldier.  It  has  often  been  pointed 
out  that  in  these  great  matters  of  international 
relations,  it  is  unwise  to  allow  ourselves  to  be 
guided  by  sentiment  rather  than  by  reason  and 
calculation.  But  there  is  a  sentiment  of  hatred 
as  well  as  of  respect  and  affection,  and  the  indul- 
gence of  the  passion  of  hatred,  however  justified 
it  may  be,  is,  as  a  practical  guide,  just  as  danger- 
ous as  that  of  sympathy.  The  "  humiliation  of 
Germany  "  would  be  necessarily  and  implicitly  in- 
volved in  the  defeat  of  the  German  armies  and  the 
disappointment  in  the  ambitions  with  which  the 
war  began;  it  would  also  arise  from  the  con- 
sciousness of  the  loss  of  respect  which  had  arisen 
from  the  manner  in  which  the  war  has  been  con- 
ducted. Beyond  this  it  does  not  appear  to  be 
a  definite  object  of  such  a  nature  that  a  states- 
man would  put  it  before  himself  for  its  own 
sake. 

• 

I  have  throughout  this  book  deliberately  re- 
frained from  referring  to  those  questions  involved 
in  the  methods  by  which  the  Germans  have  con- 
ducted the  war.  I  have  done  so,  not  from  any 
indifference,  —  for  how  could  anyone  be  indif- 


INTRODUCTION  37 

ferent  to  acts  which  threaten  to  undermine  the 
whole  basis  of  modern  European  civilisation? 
But  it  seems  to  me  desirable  to  separate  the  con- 
sideration of  this  matter  entirely  from  the  purely 
political  questions  which  are  at  stake,  even  though 
these  other  considerations  are  (as  I  think  is 
still  the  case)  more  important.  For  the  same 
reason  I  have  not  considered  the  claims  which 
the  Germans  make  that  their  culture  and  civilisa- 
tion is  superior  to  that  of  other  nations.  I  care 
not  whether  this  claim  is  just  or  is  foolish.  What- 
ever view  we  might  take  of  this  matter,  it  cannot 
be  contended  that  the  superiority  of  modern  Ger- 
man society  is  more  superior  to  that  of  France 
and  of  England  than  was  the  civilisation  of  the 
France  of  Louis  XIV  to  the  Germany  which 
emerged  from  the  Thirty  Years'  War,  or  the 
political  condition  of  England  to  that  of  the  Con- 
tinent during  the  eighteenth  century.  But  in 
modern  Europe  no  temporary  superiority  pos- 
sessed for  a  few  decades  by  a  single  state  can  be 
made  the  justification  for  permanent  political 
ascendancy.  No  passage  in  Prince  Billow's 
recent  work  is  wiser  or  more  remarkable  than 
that  in  which  he  warns  the  Germans  against  too 
insistent  encomiums  of  their  own  culture,  and 
reminds  them  that  the  world  fears  a  hegemony 
of  culture  even  more  than  political  supremacy. 

When  will  peace  come?     It  will  come  when 
Germany  is  ready  for  it,  and  the  time  is  approach- 


38  THE    ISSUE 

ing.  It  will  come  when  Germany  has  learnt  the 
lesson  of  the  war,  when  it  has  found,  as  every 
other  nation  has  had  to  learn,  that  the  voice  of 
Europe  cannot  be  defied  with  impunity.  It  will 
come  when  Germany  is  ready  to  repudiate  the 
persons  and  the  principles  that  made  the  war  in- 
evitable, when  the  militarists  and  the  chauvinists 
have  become  a  despised  and  repudiated  remnant, 
when  the  nation  says : 

To  you  we  listened,  and  you  we  have  obeyed, 
to  you  we  have  sacrificed  all  that  holds  us  to  life, 
the  lives  of  our  sons  and  our  husbands  and  our 
fathers,  the  ideals  and  beliefs  of  our  ancestors, 
and  our  own  better  nature.  You  have  offered  us 
wealth  and  power  and  the  kingdoms  of  this  world, 
and  we  accepted  your  offer  and  your  promise, 
and  what  have  we  ?  For  them  we  have  bartered 
our  all,  and  there  is  nothing  in  return  but  hunger 
and  cold  and  nakedness,  disease  and  death,  ruin 
and  destitution.  Never  in  the  history  of  the 
world  has  there  been  such  unanimity  in  sacrifice ; 
before  our  deeds  the  armies  of  Napoleon  may 
bow  the  head,  and  what  have  we  won  by  it  ?  Two 
years  ago  the  world  was  at  our  feet,  to  our  cities 
men  came  from  every  land,  and  in  every  land 
our  merchants  were  the  most  prosperous,  our 
products  were  the  most  used,  and  it  was  our 
thoughts  that  men  thought.  And  now  travel 
round  the  globe,  and  we  are  the  despised  and 
hated  of  mankind,  we  have  the  curse  of  Cain  on 
our  brow,  men  shun  us  in  the  streets,  and  our 
language  is  ostracised.  To  you  we  owe  it  that 


INTRODUCTION  39 

the  achievements  of  a  century  of  national  effort 
have  been  lost. 

Germany  asks  for  security;  she  shall  have  it 
—  precisely  the  same  security  that  France  and 
Russia  and  Italy  and  Holland  enjoy;  a  security 
based  partly  on  her  own  strength,  but  even  more 
on  the  recognition  of  the  laws  and  principles  of 
Europe.  Germany  asks  for  guarantees ;  she  shall 
have  them  —  precisely  the  same  guarantees  with 
which  every  other  state  has  to  be  content;  the 
guarantee  that  the  tyrannical  overgrowth  of  any 
one  state  or  confederation  of  states  will  inevi- 
tably arouse  in  the  rest  of  Europe  a  coalition  be- 
fore which  every  nation,  even  the  strongest,  must 
bow.  These  laws  of  European  life  have  been 
learnt  in  the  course  of  centuries  by  all  nations  and 
accepted,  and  they  have  always  been  learnt  in 
the  same  way,  in  the  bitter  school  of  experience 
and  war.  Germany  is  now  learning  the  lesson, 
and  the  war  will  continue  till  the  lesson  has  been 
completed;  then  it  will  stop.  It  will  stop  when 
it  has  been  burnt  into  the  heart  of  the  whole  na- 
tion so  that  it  will  never  be  forgotten.  Men  talk 
of  the  terms  of  peace.  They  matter  little.  With 
a  Germany  victorious  no  terms  could  secure  the 
future  of  Europe,  with  a  Germany  defeated  no 
artificial  securities  will  be  wanted,  for  there  will 
be  a  stronger  security  in  the  consciousness  of 
defeat. 


CHAPTER    I 
TWO    MANIFESTOES1 

ONCE  more  the  German  Chancellor  has  made  a 
speech  in  which  he  has  for  the  fourth  time  re- 
peated in  almost  identical  words  his  definition 
of  the  reasons  which  brought  Germany  into  the 
war.  Again  we  have  had  a  debate  in  the  Reichs- 
tag,2 in  which  the  Chancellor  and  the  party 
leaders  have  repeated  their  catechism  and  have 
told  us  their  story  of  a  peaceful  Germany  occupied 
only  in  the  work  of  quiet  development  at  home, 
forced  unwillingly  into  war  and  waging  it  with 
the  single  desire  to  obtain  security  against  another 
attack,  and  once  more  we  see  them  attempting 
to  make  England  responsible  for  not  only  the 
beginning  but  the  continuation  of  the  war. 

It  will,  therefore,  be  worth  while  to  examine 
what  evidence  we  have  as  to  the  real  aims  which 
the  "  peaceful "  German  Nation  have  in  fact  put 
before  themselves.  This  will  put  in  a  truer  light 
the  rhetoric  of  the  Chancellor.  I  propose,  there- 
fore, shortly  to  examine  the  most  authentic 
expressions  of  German  national  feeling  and  to 
compare  them  with  his  speeches.  In  doing  so,  I 

1  The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  May,  1916. 

2  April  5,  1916. 


42  THE    ISSUE 

shall  confine  myself  to  those  who  can  speak  with 
some  authority,  as,  for  instance,  the  official 
spokesmen  of  the  parties,  and  shall  neglect  the 
overwhelming  mass  of  material  provided  in  news- 
papers and  magazines,  so  far  as  it  can  be  repre- 
sented to  be  merely  the  expression  of  private  and 
individual  opinion. 

First  let  us  take  two  important  documents 
issued  in  the  spring  and  summer  of  last  year. 
The  one  is  a  petition  to  the  Chancellor,  originally 
drawn  up  in  the  month  of  March,  1915,  and  again 
presented  to  him  in  May  by  six  economic  associa- 
tions. These  societies  together  represent  all 
classes  in  the  Empire  with  the  exception  of  the 
working  classes  (whose  interests  are  represented 
by  the  Social  Democrats,  the  Christian  Socialists, 
and  the  trade  unions).  They  correspond  to  the 
union  of  all  the  biirgerliche,  or  non-socialistic 
parties  in  the  Reichstag,  of  which  we  shall  have 
to  speak  below.  The  associations  themselves 
have  very  large  numbers  of  members,  and  they 
have  affiliated  branches  in  all  parts  of  the  country. 
They  are  not  confined  to  Prussia,  they  include 
the  manufacturers  of  Saxony  and  the  peasant 
proprietors  of  Wurttemberg.  They  have  all  been 
founded  at  different  times  since  the  adoption 
of  protection  converted  German  politics  into  a 
struggle  for  supremacy  between  rival  industrial 
and  financial  claims.  One  of  their  chief  duties, 
as  it  is  indeed  the  prime  reason  for  their  existence, 
is  the  defence  of  the  economic  interests  of  their 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  43 

members  in  connection  with  the  discussion  of 
tariff  and  taxation;  they  have  therefore  a  very 
active  and  real  importance,  they  represent  not 
so  much  opinions  as  interests,  and  for  this  reason 
their  decisions  carry  weight  with  the  Reichstag 
and  the  Government;  a  joint  resolution  by  them 
cannot  be  dismissed  as  negligible,  rather  it  is  the 
weightiest  form  in  which  the  wishes  of  the  active 
and  driving  elements  in  the  nation  could  be  ex- 
pressed. Generally  they  are  rivals  and  oppo- 
nents; this  is  probably  the  first  time  that  they 
have  all  been  found  in  agreement,  but  just  for 
this  reason  their  unanimity  gives  to  their  mani- 
festo a  weight  which  can  rarely  belong  to  any 
similar  expression  of  opinion.1 

The  second  document  (which  purports  to 
emanate  from  "leaders  of  German  thought")  is  a 
manifesto  drawn  up  in  June,  1915,  for  the  purpose 
of  being  presented  to  the  Chancellor ;  it  was  pub- 
lished in  Berne  in  August.  It  is  said  to  have  re- 
ceived thirteen  thousand  signatures,  but  a  list  of 
the  names  is  not  attainable,  nor  is  it  clear  when,  if 
ever,  it  was  in  fact  presented  to  the  Chancellor. 
On  all  main  points,  though  the  wording  is  differ- 
ent, it  is  in  substance  identical  with  the  petition  of 
the  economic  associations,  and  the  two  clearly 
have  a  common  intellectual  origin,  unless  indeed 
(as  is  perhaps  more  probable)  the  ideas  and  de- 
mands that  they  incorporate  are  so  generally  dif- 

1  The  two  manifestoes  are  printed  at  length  in  the  Appen- 
dixes. 


44  THE    ISSUE 

fused  among  the  more  energetic  and  pushing 
circles  that  the  similarity  of  language  merely  in- 
dicates how  faithfully  these  documents  reproduce 
the  prevailing  opinion. 

What  we  may  call  the  preamble  is  common 
form,  common  to  all  discussions  of  peace  in  all 
nations.  Both  begin  by  protesting  against  the 
idea  of  an  immature  peace  or  an  indecisive  peace. 

The  present  war  must  be  followed  by  an 
honourable  peace,  corresponding  to  the  sacrifices 
made  and  containing  in  itself  the  guarantee  of  its 
endurance. 

It  must  never  be  forgotten  that  our  enemies 
declare  unceasingly  that  Germany  must  be  an- 
nihilated and  struck  out  from  the  list  of  great 
Powers.  In  view  of  such  aspirations  we  find  no 
protection  in  treaties  which  will  be  trampled 
underfoot  at  the  opportune  moment.  Our  only 
guarantee  consists  in  an  economic  and  military 
enfeeblement  of  our  adversaries,  such  that, 
thanks  to  it,  peace  will  be  ensured  for  a  period 
as  long  as  can  be  taken  into  consideration. 

So  far  the  economic  associations.  We  have 
similar  language  from  the  "  leaders  of  German 
thought " : 

We  want  to  defend  ourselves  with  all  our 
might  against  the  repetition  of  such  an  attack 
from  the  other  side,  against  a  whole  succession 
of  wars  and  against  the  possibility  of  our  enemies 
again  becoming  strong.  Moreover,  we  are  deter- 
mined to  establish  ourselves  so  firmly,  on  such  a 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  45 

broad  expanse  of  securely  won  homeland,  that  our 
independent  existence  is  guaranteed  for  genera- 
tions to  come.  .  .  .  Only  one  fear  exists  in  all 
classes  of  our  people,  that  mistaken  ideas  of 
atonement,  or  even  nervous  impatience,  might 
lead  to  the  conclusion  of  a  premature  peace  which 
could  never  be  lasting  —  it  may  be  that,  owing 
to  the  numerical  superiority  of  our  enemies,  we 
cannot  obtain  everything  we  wish  in  order  to 
secure  our  position  as  a  nation,  but  the  military 
results  of  this  war  obtained  by  such  great  sacri- 
fices must  be  utilised  to  the  very  utmost  possible 
extent. 

We  will  pass  over  these  preliminary  remarks: 
this  general  conception  of  the  situation  —  a  Ger- 
many which  is  to  defend  itself  against  threats 
of  annihilation,  and  does  so  by  weakening  its 
enemies  to  such  an  extent  that  it  need  fear  no 
attack  in  future.  We  will  turn  for  the  moment 
to  the  particular  manner  in  which  these  desirable 
results  are  to  be  obtained ;  for  what  is  remarkable 
in  these  documents  is  not  the  vague  generalities 
with  which  they  begin,  but  the  precision  with 
which  they  are  worked  out  in  detail.  Though 
the  wording  is  different  the  requests  of  the  two 
are,  in  fact,  identical. 

First  let  us  take  the  "  Leaders  of  Thought." 

i.  FRANCE 

After  being  threatened  by  France  for  cen- 
turies, and  after  hearing  the  cry  of  vengeance 
from  1815  till  1870,  and  from  1871  till  1915,  we 


46  THE    ISSUE 

wish  to  have  done  with  the  French  menace  once 
for  all.  All  classes  of  our  people  are  imbued  with 
this  desire.  There  must,  however,  be  no  mis- 
placed attempts  at  reconciliation  (Versohnungs- 
beinilhungen) ,  which  have  always  been  opposed 
by  France  with  the  utmost  fanaticism;  and  as 
regards  this  we  would  utter  a  most  urgent  warn- 
ing to  Germans  not  to  deceive  themselves.  Even 
after  the  terrible  lesson  of  this  unsuccessful  war 
of  vengeance  France  will  still  thirst  for  re- 
venge, in  so  far  as  her  strength  permits.  For 
the  sake  of  our  own  existence  we  must  ruthlessly 
weaken  her  both  politically  and  economically, 
and  must  improve  our  military  and  strategical 
position  with  regard  to  her.  For  this  purpose,  in 
our  opinion,  it  is  necessary  radically  to  improve 
our  whole  western  front  from  Bel  fort  to  the 
coast.  Part  of  the  North  French  Channel  coast 
we  must  acquire,  if  possible,  in  order  to  be  strate- 
gically safer  as  regards  England  and  to  secure 
better  access  to  the  ocean. 

Special  measures  must  be  taken  to  avoid 
the  German  Empire  in  any  way  suffering  inter- 
nally owing  to  this  enlargement  of  its  frontier 
and  addition  to  its  territory.  In  order  not  to 
have  conditions  such  as  those  in  Alsace-Lorraine, 
the  most  important  business  undertakings  and 
estates  must  be  transferred  from  anti-German 
ownership  to  German  hands,  France  taking  over 
and  compensating  the  former  owners.  Such 
portion  of  the  population  as  is  taken  over  by  us 
must  be  allowed  absolutely  no  influence  in  the 
empire. 

Furthermore,  it  is  necessary  to  impose  a  merci- 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  47 

lessly  high  war  indemnity  (of  which  more  here- 
after) upon  France,  and  probably  on  her  rather 
than  on  any  other  of  our  enemies,  however  ter- 
rible the  financial  losses  she  may  have  already 
suffered  owing  to  her  own  folly  and  British  self- 
seeking.  We  must  also  not  forget  that  she  has 
comparatively  large  colonial  possessions,  and  that, 
should  circumstances  arise,  England  could  hold 
on  to  these  with  impunity  if  we  do  not  help  our- 
selves to  them. 

2.  BELGIUM 

On  Belgium,  on  the  acquisition  of  which  so 
much  of  the  best  German  blood  has  been  shed, 
we  must  keep  firm  hold,  from  the  political,  mili- 
tary and  economic  standpoints,  despite  any  argu- 
ments which  may  be  urged  to  the  contrary.  On 
no  point  are  the  masses  more  united,  for  without 
the  slightest  possible  doubt  they  consider  it  a 
matter  of  honour  to  hold  on  to  Belgium. 

From  the  political  and  military  standpoints 
it  is  obvious  that,  were  this  not  done,  Belgium 
would  be  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  basis  from 
which  England  could  attack  and  most  danger- 
ously menace  Germany ;  in  short,  a  shield  behind 
which  our  foes  would  again  assemble  against  us. 
Economically,  Belgium  means  a  prodigious  in- 
crease of  power  to  us. 

In  time  also  she  may  entail  a  considerable 
addition  to  our  nation,  if  in  course  of  time  the 
Flemish  element,  which  is  so  closely  allied  to  us, 
becomes  emancipated  from  the  artificial  grip  of 
French  culture  and  remembers  its  Teutonic 
affinities. 


48  THE    ISSUE 

As  to  the  problems  which  we  shall  have  to 
solve  once  we  possess  Belgium,  we  would  lay 
special  stress  on  the  inhabitants  being  allowed  no 
political  influence  in  the  empire,  and  on  the 
necessity  for  transferring  from  anti-German  to 
German  hands  the  leading  business  enterprises 
and  properties  in  the  districts  to  be  ceded  by 
France. 

But  this  is  only  one  sector  of  the  war:  there 
must  be  a  similar  extension  of  territory  in  the 
East.  "  Russia  is  so  rich  in  territory  that  she 
will  be  able  to  pay  an  indemnity  in  kind  by  giving 
lands,  but  lands  without  landlords."  But  let  it 
not  be  thought  that  Germany  is  going  to  conclude 
the  war  without  similar  surrender  by  Great 
Britain  in  the  colonial  field.  "  We  must  sup- 
plant the  world-trade  of  Great  Britain."  The 
alliance  with  Austria-Hungary  and  Turkey  will 
open  up  the  Balkans.  "  Thus  we  shall  assure 
ourselves  of  the  Persian  Gulf  against  the  preten- 
sions of  Russia  and  Great  Britain."  To  this  is 
to  be  added  a  new  African  Empire :  "  In  Africa 
we  must  reconstitute  our  Colonial  Empire." 
"  Central  Africa  is  only  a  huge  desert,  which 
does  not  offer  enough  colonial  wealth.  We  there- 
fore require  other  productive  lands,  and  herein 
is  to  be  found  the  importance  of  our  alliance  with 
Islam  and  the  utility  of  our  maritime  outlet." 
"  We  must  have  Egypt  —  that  is  where  England 
must  be  shaken.  The  Suez  Canal  route  will  then 
be  free,  and  Turkey  will  regain  her  ancient  right." 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  49 

The  petition  of  the  economic  associations  is 
equally  definite;  they  demand  the  incorporation 
with  Germany  of  the  whole  of  Belgium,  the  ad- 
jacent districts  of  France,  including  the  coast  as 
far  as  the  mouth  of  the  Somme  —  that  is,  the 
whole  coast  of  the  Channel  with  Calais  and 
Boulogne,  and  the  frontier  borders  of  the  Vosges, 
including  Belfort  and  Verdun.  In  the  East  they 
ask  for  the  annexation  of  at  least  part  of  the 
Baltic  Provinces  with  the  districts  to  the  south 
of  them  —  that  is,  at  least  a  large  portion  of  the 
Kingdom  of  Poland.  If  the  demands  in  this 
direction  are  comparatively  moderate,  this  is  to 
be  attributed  to  the  fact  that  at  the  time  the 
petitions  were  drawn  up  the  German  occupation 
of  Poland  was  still  incomplete. 

These  are  the  demands,  the  demands  as  formu- 
lated a  year  ago.  It  will  be  well  to  keep  them  in 
mind  when  we  read  these  self-complacent  expla- 
nations of  the  Chancellor  that  Germany  has  in  the 
war  no  object  but  security  and  self-defence,  and 
that  they  have  no  lust  for  world-dominions. 

But  those  who  wish  to  understand  the  motives 
and  principles  of  these  new  statesmen  should  not 
omit  to  consider  the  exposition  of  the  reasons  for 
the  annexations  in  Europe,  and  the  choice  of  the 
territories  to  be  taken.  We  feel  that  we  have  to 
do  with  modern  men ;  they  are  not  romanticists, 
they  do  not  trouble  us  with  the  historical  argu- 
ments which  were  dear  to  the  Germans  of  the 
old  school,  nor  is  there  any  suggestion  that 


5o  THE    ISSUE 

this  reunion  may  be  justified  on  the  ground  of 
nationality. 

The  grounds  are  double :  military  and  economic. 
As  to  the  first,  the  military  and  strategic  point: 
"  Belgium  must  be  annexed,  as  otherwise  it  would 
be  a  point  d'appui  for  England  against  us  " ;  and 
as  to  France  we  have  a  sentence  which  alone 
sums  up  the  whole  of  German  military  thought. 
"  The  lines  of  natural  fortification  of  France,  if 
they  remained  in  the  hands  of  the  French,  would 
constitute  a  permanent  menace  against  our 
frontier."  This  is  one  of  those  pregnant  state- 
ments the  full  signification  of  which  grows  upon 
one.  The  natural  line  of  fortifications  of  France, 
is  not  that  the  defence  of  France,  are  not  the 
fortifications  situated  on  the  natural  soil  of 
France,  the  barriers  on  the  road  into  the  country  ? 
Are  they  not  the  lock  to  the  door,  the  drawbridge 
and  portcullis  by  which  invaders,  robbers,  free- 
booters are  excluded?  But  they  are  a  per- 
manent menace  to  the  German  frontier;  the 
security  of  other  nations  is  a  menace  to  Germany. 
What  language  is  this,  in  what  other  country 
could  it  have  been  used?  Let  us  be  done  with 
the  childish  talk  of  the  "  peaceful "  German 
nation,  let  us  recognise  that  here  we  have  not 
from  the  mouth  of  the  Government,  not  from 
Prussian  militarism,  but  from  the  leaders  in 
business  and  commerce,  from  those  occupied 
with  the  peaceful  arts  of  husbandry  and  manu- 
facture, the  pure  and  unadulterated  voice  of  the 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  51 

tyrant  State.  Germany  is  to  be  protected  by  a 
triple  wall  which  guards  her  against  every  assault, 
but  the  land  of  her  neighbours  is  to  lie  open  and 
unprotected  to  every  assault  of  the  robber  bands. 

Germany  is  to  have  full  security,  a  security 
to  be  attained  by  a  strategic  frontier.  But  what 
about  France?  Has  not  Metz  for  forty  years 
been  held  by  Germany  in  conscious  and  deliberate 
violation  of  every  principle  of  nationality  for  no 
other  reason  than  that  it  should  be  used  as  a 
sally-port,  giving  Germany  the  control  of  the 
passage  of  the  Vosges,  a  military  position  held  on 
the  very  soil  of  France  itself,  a  pistol  directed 
against  Paris?  Germany  is  to  have  her  strategic 
frontier,  but  is  not  Italy  entitled  also  to  ask 
for  the  same  thing?  In  the  final  settlement  of 
Europe  is  Austria  to  continue  to  hold  the  passage 
into  Italy  and  from  the  summit  of  the  Alps 
dominate  the  plains  of  Lombardy  and  Venetia? 

But  these  associations  are  not,  of  course, 
primarily  responsible  for  military  matters;  on 
economic  matters  they  speak  with  authority. 
Their  work  comes  in  the  division  of  the  spoil. 
The  loot  is  not  to  be  taken  hastily  and  indis- 
criminately, they  will  choose  what  is  valuable 
and  leave  the  dross.  They  count  up  the  spoil 
of  France  and  Russia,  as  the  mother  of  Sisera 
counted  up  the  spoil  from  the  slaughtered 
Israelites.  "  Have  they  not  sped  ?  Have  they 
not  divided  the  prey;  to  every  man  a  damsel  or 
two;  to  Sisera  a  prey  of  divers  colours  of  needle- 


52  THE    ISSUE 

work,  meet  for  the  necks  of  them  that  take  the 
spoil?" 

But  there  was  no  prey  for  Sisera  and  the 
Amalekites ;  only  the  waters  of  the  river  Kishon 
and  the  lonely  death  in  a  desert  tent.  "  So  let 
all  thine  enemies  perish,  O  Lord,"  and  then  per- 
haps "  the  land  will  have  rest  forty  years." 

Nothing  is  to  be  taken  from  France  except  for 
strategic  reasons  which  has  no  economic  value. 

What  gives  a  nation  wealth  and  power? 
Mineral  resources  —  therefore  the  territory  to  be 
annexed  from  France  must  be  chosen  to  include 
the  mining  district  of  Briey,  and  in  addition  the 
coal  areas  in  the  Departments  of  Le  Nord  and  the 
Pas  de  Calais. 

This  with  the  coast-line  will  enable  full  use 
to  be  made  of  the  canals  and  enable  the  ports  at 
the  mouth  of  the  canals  to  assume  their  full 
importance.  The  security  of  the  German  Empire 
in  a  future  war  imperiously  calls  for  all  the  beds 
of  minerals,  including  the  fortresses  of  Longwy 
and  of  Verdun,  without  which  these  mineral  beds 
cannot  be  protected.  The  possession  of  great 
quantities  of  coal,  and  especially  of  coal  rich  in 
bitumen,  which  abounds  in  the  basin  of  the 
North  of  France,  is,  at  least  in  as  great  measure 
as  iron  ore,  decisive  for  the  issue  of  the  war. 
Belgium  and  the  North  of  France  together  pro- 
duce more  than  forty  millions  of  tons. 

Here  we  have  the  very  essence  of  Realpolitik. 
It  is  naked  and  undisguised.  You  are  rich  and  I 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  53 

am  strong,  you  have  coal  and  iron  and  wealth 
which  I  should  like  to  have.  My  armies  are 
stronger  than  yours,  and  if  I  take  these  they  will 
become  even  stronger  and  yours  will  become 
weaker.  Therefore  I  will  take  them. 

In  this  way  the  industrial  resources  of  the 
Empire  will  be  increased.  But  experience  has 
shown  that  the  prosperity  of  a  nation  and  its 
success  in  war  require  a  certain  equilibrium  be- 
tween industry  and  agriculture.  "  The  present 
economic  structure  of  Germany  has  proved  so 
favourable  in  the  present  war  that  the  necessity 
for  maintaining  it  ...  may  well  be  considered 
as  the  general  conviction  of  the  people."  And  as 
we  all  know,  the  political  equilibrium  of  Germany 
depends  on  a  working  compromise  between  the 
great  industrialists  and  what  we  call  the  landed 
interest.  In  England  we  have  neglected  this, 
industrial  interests  look  on  the  landed  classes 
rather  as  a  hostile  interest  to  be  kept  down ;  the 
Germans  are  wiser.  And  so,  as  the  two  industrial 
societies  have  chosen  their  share  in  the  plunder, 
the  agriculturists  must  be  treated  with  no  less 
generosity.  Rivals  at  home,  the  two  interests 
coalesce  in  plundering  other  nations.  The  very 
fact  that  the  best  mining  districts  are  taken  from 
France  is  a  reason  why  extensive  agriculturist 
districts  should  be  taken  from  Russia. 

And  again  Germany  wants  men. 

If  Germany  failed  to  annex  agriculturist  ter- 
ritories on  our  eastern  frontier,  we  should  be 


54  THE    ISSUE 

restricting  the  possibility  of  increasing  by  a  suf- 
ficient growth  of  the  population  of  Germany  her 
military  power  as  against  Russia.  .  .  .  National 
popular  vigour  depends  on  a  vigorous  agriculture, 
and  it  is  necessary  to  ensure  the  growth  of  our 
population  and  to  strengthen  by  that  very  means 
our  military  power. 

A  mere  Englishman  or  Frenchman  might  here 
make  objection  that  if  districts  already  occupied 
by  alien  and  probably  hostile  races  are  annexed 
they  will  not  really  increase  German  power,  but 
prove  a  source  of  weakness.  But  German  science 
neglects  nothing,  and  he  will  find  this  objection 
anticipated.  It  is  an  obvious  danger  to  be 
removed.  This  is  easy  enough :  easy,  at  least, 
to  those  who  have  freed  their  minds  from  "  senti- 
ment." The  present  owners  will  be  expropri- 
ated and  German  settlers  placed  on  the  land 
in  their  place.  "  We  must  make  possible  a 
German  agrarian  colonisation  on  a  large  scale, 
and  the  repatriation  upon  German  territory  of 
German  peasants  living  abroad,  and  especially 
in  Russia." 

These  territorial  increases  assume  that  the 
population  of  the  annexed  territories  will  not  be 
able  to  obtain  a  political  influence  upon  the 
destinies  of  the  German  Empire,  and  that  all 
the  sources  of  economic  power  in  these  territories, 
including  properties  great  and  small,  will  pass 
into  German  hands. 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  55 

This  is  at  least  simple;  the  French  and  Rus- 
sians will  be  turned  out,  and  their  place  will  be 
taken  by  Germans.  The  mistake  made  in  dealing 
with  Alsace-Lorraine  .will  not  be  repeated.  Lille 
and  Warsaw  will  not  only  be  annexed  by  Ger- 
many, they  will  become  German.  Could  anything 
be  more  satisfactory? 

There  will  be  no  difficulty  in  doing  this ;  the  cost 
of  the  expropriation  will  be  borne  by  France  and 
by  Russia.  It  will  be  part  of  the  war  indemnity. 

Do  not  let  it  be  thought  that  it  is  the  associa- 
tions alone  who  advocate  these  measures.  They 
receive  the  full  approval  of  the  "  leaders  of 
thought."  "  In  order  not  to  have  conditions  such 
as  those  in  Alsace-Lorraine  the  most  important 
business  undertakings  and  estates  must  be  trans- 
ferred from  anti-German  ownership  to  German 
hands,  France  taking  over  and  compensating 
the  former  owners."  As  in  France,  so  also  in 
Russia. 

It  will  be  convenient  to  consider  for  a  moment 
this  last  demand  which  is  common  to  the  two 
documents.  Here  we  have  deliberately  put 
forward  by  large  numbers  of  highly  influential 
Germans  the  request,  not  only  for  annexation 
of  the  conquered  territory,  but  annexation  in  such 
a  form  that  the  inhabitants  of  the  conquered  pro- 
vinces are  to  be  deprived  of  all  political  rights  and 
disappropriated  of  their  possessions,  which  are 
to  be  transferred  to  German  hands.  In  a  word, 
parts  of  Europe  are  to  be  treated  as  we  should 


56  THE    ISSUE 

never  treat  conquered  territories  of  Africa ;  once 
more  the  condition  of  subjects  deprived  of  the 
rights  of  citizenship,  a  condition  which  we 
thought  had  been  finally  abolished  from  Western 
Europe,  is  to  be  reestablished.  Those  who  have 
been  citizens  of  the  two  freest  countries  in  Europe 
are  to  become  Helots  and  outlanders.  In  their 
own  homes  these  French,  these  Belgian,  these 
Polish  subjects  are  to  become  as  Rayahs  or 
Fellaheen  of  the  Turkish  Empire.  They  are  to 
be  hewers  of  wood  and  drawers  of  water  for  their 
German  lords.  Two  years  ago  it  would,  I  think, 
have  been  considered  impossible  that  a  sugges- 
tion of  this  kind  for  the  treatment  of  any  district 
in  Western  Europe  should  have  been  made  by 
any  civilised  individual,  but  in  truth  the  doctrine 
of  German  Kultur  drags  us  into  strange  places. 

Many  and  strange  indeed  are  the  ideas  that 
spring  up  like  weeds  in  the  brains  of  Germany. 
Turning  over  the  pages  of  the  Turmer,  I  find  an 
unknown  writer  who  tells  us  that  "  Germans 
abroad  must  be  collected  together."  "  As  many 
as  possible  of  them  must  be  rescued  from  their 
present  position."  This  must  be  done  by  far- 
reaching  transplantation. 

In  a  time  of  the  mass  movement  of  the  armies, 
we  must  not  shrink  from  mass  movements  of  the 
population.  William  the  Second  must  carry  out 
on  a  great  scale  a  policy  of  transplanting  adopted 
by  the  Assyrian  and  Babylonian  kings.  Why 
not,  for  instance,  drive  out  the  Walloons  of 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  57 

Belgium  to  France,  Algeria,  Morocco,  Brazil,  and 
occupy  the  country  with  Germans? 

At  the  beginning  of  the  war  I  ventured  to 
compare  the  spirit  of  modern  Germany  with  that 
of  the  Assyrian  kings  —  it  seemed  a  bold  com- 
parison, but  I  now  find  that  it  was  even  truer 
than  I  thought.1  My  experience  is  that  no  sug- 
gestion can  be  made  so  contrary  to  right  reason 
and  to  European  tradition  but  it  will  soon  be 
outdone  by  some  German  writer. 

It  may  be  said  that  we  need  not  trouble  about 
these  wild  thoughts,  they  will  have  no  effect 
in  practice.  We  cannot  content  ourselves  with 
this.  After  all  the  fundamental  conception  of 
the  Germans  as  a  superior  race,  annexing  and 
if  necessary  dispensing  the  lands  of  inferior 
peoples,  is  in  complete  accord  with  the  history 
of  the  policy  of  Prussia.  It  is  not  merely  the 
chimera  of  a  few  exaggerated  theorists.  It  has 
behind  it  practical  experience,  and  is  merely  the 
reproduction,  on  a  larger  scale  and  under  what 
would  be  more  favourable  conditions,  of  what  the 
Prussian  Government  have  already  begun.  The 
proposed  annexations  in  France  and  Belgium  are 
merely  a  repetition  on  a  larger  scale  of  what  has 
already  been  done  in  Schleswig  and  in  Alsace- 
Lorraine.  And  the  method  of  expropriation  is 
the  principle  on  which  the  Polish  districts  of 
Prussia  have  in  fact  been  governed  for  the  last 

1  England,  Germany,  and  Europe.     Macmillan. 


58  THE    ISSUE 

twenty  years  —  that  the  Poles  should  become 
Germans,  that  the  German  language  should  be 
substituted  for  Polish,  and  that  the  Polish  landed 
proprietors  should  be  expropriated  and  make 
room  for  Germans.  The  only  difference  is  that, 
while  hitherto  it  has  been  necessary  to  do  this 
at  the  expense  of  the  Prussian  Government,  the 
fact  that  there  has  been  a  war  would  enable  the 
same  ends  to  be  carried  out  at  the  expense  of 
others,  and  with  far  better  prospects  of  success.1 
We  may  even  go  further  and  recognise  that 
under  modern  conditions  action  of  this  kind  is 
the  necessary  result  of  annexation.  We  must  not 
look  on  these  suggestions  as  the  wild  vagaries  of 
theorists.  They  are  based  on  the  recognition  of 
a  practical  truth.  The  modern  state,  depending 
as  it  does  on  universal  suffrage  and  universal 
military  service,  requires  a  certain  amount  of 
homogeneity  of  feeling  among  the  inhabitants. 
Its  close  texture  will  not  admit  the  presence  of 
large  districts  the  people  of  which  revolt  from  the 
fundamental  principle  on  which  the  state  is  es- 
tablished. You  cannot  have  in  a  national  state 
such  as  France  or  Germany  provinces  which  deny 
assent  to  the  nationality,  refuse  so  far  as  they 
can  to  accept  the  obligations  which  the  state 
requires  from  all  its  members,  and  use  their 
political  power  not  to  strengthen  but  to  destroy 
it.  This  the  Germans  have  learnt  from  the  pre- 

1  The  reader  will  find  a  considered  defence  of  this  policy  in 
Billow's  Imperial  Germany. 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  59 

sence  in  the  Reichstag  of  the  Reichsfeindliche 
parties,  the  Poles,  the  Danes,  the  Alsatians.  In 
an  assembly  summoned  to  assist  in  the  govern- 
ment of  the  Empire  there  is  no  place  for  those 
whose  only  wish  is  either  to  destroy  it  or  at  least 
to  separate  from  it.  Especially  dangerous  is  the 
presence  of  this  element  in  the  State  when  the 
revolting  provinces  are  situated  on  the  very 
frontiers  of  the  country  immediately  contiguous 
to  its  permanent  enemies.  Even  now  the  pre- 
sence of  these  alien  enemies  has  been  an  embar- 
rassment; were  the  numbers  increased  it  would 
be  a  serious  danger. 

If,  then,  there  is  to  be  annexation,  it  must  be 
followed  by  some  such  measure.  These  writers, 
starting  from  the  assumption  that  everything 
that  is  for  the  strength  of  Germany  must  be 
adopted,  do  not  shrink  from  the  conclusion  that 
annexation  must  be  accompanied  by  that  which 
they  rightly  see  is  its  logical  conclusion.  To  this 
end  all  must  be  sacrificed;  justice,  honour,  hu- 
manity are  dismissed  as  mere  sentiment.  But 
we  will  be  thankful  to  them  for  pointing  out  to 
us  the  dilemma,  and  we  shall  adopt  the  conclusion 
that  as  this  is  the  logical  result  of  any  annexation, 
then  the  policy  of  annexation  is  ipso  facto  con- 
demned not  only  for  Germany,  but  for  every  other 
civilised  state,  and  boldly  accept  what  is  the 
Magna  Carta  of  our  times  —  that  the  soil  of 
Western  Europe  is  not  and  cannot  be  the  subject 
of  annexation  and  conquest. 


60  THE    ISSUE 

And  what,  if  the  suggestions  of  the  petition 
were  carried  out,  would  be  the  fate  of  the  French- 
men who  still  are  to  belong  to  France  ?  Belgians 
there  will  be  no  more. 

Before  this  new  Germany,  with  its  80,000,000 
inhabitants,  this  Germany  which  rules  from  the 
mouth  of  the  Somme  to  the  Gap  of  Bel  fort,  this 
Germany,  whose  frontier  is  brought  within  fifty 
miles  of  Paris,  what  will  be  the  position  of 
France,  a  France  deprived  of  the  great  manufac- 
turing districts  of  the  North?  It  will  have  but  a 
precarious  independence,  enjoyed  by  the  favour 
of  Germany,  an  independence  such  as  that  which 
Austria  would  have  deigned  to  allow  to  Serbia, 
or  Napoleon  to  Prussia. 

It  will  doubtless  be  said:  Why  trouble  about 
these  manifestoes?  After  all,  they  do  not  repre- 
sent the  opinion  of  the  whole  of  Germany,  and, 
even  if  they  did  when  they  were  drafted  represent 
what  many  thought,  much  has  happened  since 
then;  opinion  is  changing,  the  voice  of  reason 
and  moderation  has  been  making  itself  heard. 
This  is  true;  men  like  Professor  Delbrueck  and 
Harden,  not  to  speak  of  the  writers  in  papers 
such  as  Die  Hilfe,  expressly  or  by  implication,  do 
what  they  can  to  stem  the  effect  of  the  more 
extreme  writers,  and  a  careful  reading  of  some  of 
the  more  important  daily  papers,  such  as  the 
Berliner  Tageblatt  and  the  Frankfurter  Zeitung, 
shows  a  growing  desire  for  reconciliation  and 
peace,  if  not  with  England,  at  least  with  France. 


TWO    MANIFESTOES  61 

But  this  is  just  the  reason  why  it  is  necessary  to 
keep  these  earlier  expressions  in  mind.  There 
has  been  a  change,  the  change  is  constantly  work- 
ing, the  time  will  come  when  it  is  completed. 
But  the  cause  of  the  change  has  been  the  war, 
and  it  is  this  change  which  is  the  best  justification 
for  the  continuance  of  the  war,  for  the  work  is 
not  yet  finished.  Had  Germany  secured,  as  she 
expected,  a  speedy  and  complete  victory,  it  is  by 
the  men  whose  words  I  have  quoted  that  the 
policy  of  the  country  would  have  been  decided; 
their  demands  would,  if  not  completely  at  least 
to  a  large  extent,  have  been  carried  out.  The 
war  will  not  have  done  its  work  till  the  very  con- 
ception of  such  schemes  has  been  finally  and 
irrevocably  eliminated  from  the  German  mind. 
When  this  has  been  done,  then  Germany  will 
once  more  be  ready  to  take  her  place  as  an  equal 
member  of  the  European  federation.1 

Both  the  petition  and  the  manifesto  were  sup- 
pressed by  the  German  Government,  no  discus- 
sion of  them  was  permitted,  and  we  do  not  know 
to  what  extent  they  would  have  commanded  the 
support  of  the  nation.  The  very  fact  of  the  peti- 
tion being  made  was  indeed  most  inconvenient  to 
the  Government.  What  they  show  is  the  spirit 
and  the  conception  that  were  moving  in  the  heart 
of  the  German  Nation;  they  show  what  Europe 
would  have  had  to  face  had  Germany  come  trium- 

1  As  is  pointed  out  below  these  proposals  have  received  the 
express  approval  of  Premier  Billow,  see  Chap.  IV. 


62  THE    ISSUE 

phant  out  of  the  war.  They  were  suppressed,  for 
the  result  was  doubtful;  we  can  be  sure  that 
were  victory  secured  these  ideals  would  have 
been  pressed  on  the  Government  with  great  force, 
and  would  have  found  expression  in  the  Reichstag 
and  in  public  agitation.  Against  a  condition 
such  as  this,  so  far  as  it  prevails,  there  is  one 
remedy  only,  war  and  defeat.  With  victory  it 
would  thrive,  and  had  Germany  been  victor,  it 
would  have  spread  throughout  the  nation;  with 
every  week  that  the  war  continues  this  spirit  will 
weaken  and  decay,  and  by  defeat  it  would  be 
destroyed. 

But  it  must  not  be  thought  that  these  docu- 
ments are  in  contradiction  to  the  general  ten- 
dency of  German  thought.  If  we  leave  out  the 
Assyrian  element  the  essence  of  the  whole  is  that 
the  result  of  the  war  must  be  an  alteration  in  the 
political  condition  and  in  the  map  of  Europe, 
the  object  of  which  will  be  to  give  to  Germany 
that  complete  security  which  can  only  be  attained 
by  undisputed  ascendancy.  The  essential  thing 
is  that  there  are  to  be  large  annexations  which 
will  completely  guarantee  the  territory  of  Ger- 
many from  attack,  and  thereby  leave  all  other 
countries  open  and  defenceless  to  attack  from 
Germany.  An  enlarged  empire,  an  empire  so 
strong  that  no  one  alone  or  in  coalition  will  be 
able  to  attack  it  —  that  is  the  avowed  aim  of 
every  responsible  political  leader  or  party. 


CHAPTER  II 
THE  PARTY  LEADERS1 

IT  is  well  known  that  any  discussion  of  the  end 
of  the  war  is  forbidden;  none  the  less  all  the 
German  political  parties  have  found  an  oppor- 
tunity, both  by  their  spokesmen  in  the  Reichstag 
and  by  formal  resolutions  of  their  committees,  to 
give  their  opinion  on  these  matters.  With  the 
one  exception  of  the  Socialists  there  is  in  these 
opinions  an  absolute  identity,  and  in  all  essentials 
they  are  at  one  with  the  two  manifestoes  that  we 
have  been  considering.  What  they  require  is 
terms  of  peace  which  shall  give  to  Germany  the 
opportunity  for  free  development  of  her  power, 
and  as  a  means  to  this  they  demand  such  exten- 
sion of  territory  as  may  be  necessary  for  this 
purpose.  They  differ  from  the  manifestoes  only 
in  this,  that  they  do  not  attempt  to  determine 
precisely  how  great  the  extension  shall  be. 

It  will  be  interesting  to  quote  some  of  these 
dicta.  And  first  let  us  put  that  of  the  second 
man  in  the  Empire,  the  King  of  Bavaria : 

The  heavy  sacrifices  which  the  whole  German 
people  has  made,  require  that  we  shall  not  con- 

1  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  May,  1916. 


64  THE    ISSUE 

elude  peace  until  the  enemy  has  been  over- 
thrown, and  we  get  a  peace  which,  for  as  long  as 
we  can  foresee,  ensures  the  free  continuance  of 
every  kind  of  development  of  the  whole  people, 
till  we  have  frontiers  which  will  take  away  from 
our  opponents  the  desire  of  falling  on  us  again  and 
calling  upon  enemy  after  enemy  against  us.1 

The  German  parties  fall  into  three  groups: 
first,  the  Conservatives  and  National  Liberals, 
which  together  form  the  coalition  on  which  the 
Government  depends.  Side  by  side  with  them 
are  the  two  great  independent  parties,  the  Centre 
and  the  Socialists.  The  opinion,  as  to  peace,  of 
the  government  parties  is  unanimous.  First  we 
have  the  Conservatives.  The  committee  have 
published  their  opinion;  after  speaking  of  the 
necessity  for  overthrowing  definitely  the  gigantic 
power  of  the  Russians  and  securing  national 
security  in  the  East ;  after  pointing  out  that  the 
overthrow  of  England  must  always  be  kept  in 
the  first  rank  as  the  most  important  object  of 
the  war,  it  continues : 

With  the  whole  Conservative  Party  and  with 
the  whole  German  people,  the  committee  is  at 
one  in  the  resolution  not  to  shrink  from  any 
sacrifice  which  is  necessary  to  carry  on  the  war 
to  a  permanent  and  honourable  peace  which  will 
secure  the  foundations  for  the  future  of  Germany. 

1  These  quotations  are  taken  from  a  useful  collection  entitled 
Deutsche  Kriegszielkundgebungen,  by  Heinrich  Michaelsen,  Verlag 
Edwin  Runge,  Berlin  Lichterfelde. 


THE    PARTY    LEADERS  65 

It  will  as  a  matter  of  course  support  all  the  annex- 
ations which  are  necessary  for  this  purpose. 

On  December  5  and  6,  1915,  there  was  a  com- 
mon meeting  of  the  Conservative  and  the  Free 
Conservative  Parties;  they  came  to  the  follow- 
ing resolution : 

.  .  .  The  German  people  is  strongly  and  unani- 
mously convinced  that  the  great  sacrifices  in  life 
and  wealth  which  it  offers  and  will  continue  to 
offer  willingly  and  with  enthusiasm  must  not  be 
in  vain.  They  demand,  as  the  aim  of  peace,  a 
Germany  strengthened  in  its  whole  position, 
enlarged  beyond  its  present  borders  by  retaining 
the  greatest  amount  of  those  territories  which  are 
now  occupied.  These  frontiers  must  be  secured 
from  every  attack  on  East  and  West,  freedom  on 
the  sea  must  be  unconditionally  guaranteed,  and 
a  strengthening  of  our  national  power  must  be 
secured  which  corresponds  to  our  great  stakes. 

The  National  Liberals  hold  an  important  part 
in  German  politics;  they  are  connected  by  an 
unbroken  historical  lineage  with  the  great  party 
which  before  1870  put  themselves  at  the  head  of 
the  national  movement  for  a  united  Germany; 
they  are  the  party  which  have  above  all  others 
given  dignity  and  credit  to  parliamentary  dis- 
cussions. Their  leader,  Herr  Bassermann,  has  on 
several  occasions  explained  the  views  of  the  party 
on  peace.  In  July,  1915,  he  tells  us: 


66  THE    ISSUE 

As  at  the  front  our  brave  warriors  persevere 
in  the  heat  of  the  conflict  and  will  hear  of  no  peace 
which  does  not  bring  us  the  frontiers  in  which  we 
find  security  against  future  wars,  those  who  re- 
main at  home  stand  firmly  and  decisively  for  an 
energetic  policy.  .  .  .  There  can  be  no  talk  of  a 
policy  which  thinks  of  a  restoration  of  the  condi- 
tion before  the  war  —  the  victor  who  in  millions 
of  his  best  sons  stakes  his  life  for  the  fatherland 
will  bring  back  from  the  war  a  greater  and 
stronger  Empire,  a  security  in  the  future  against 
a  new  criminal  war. 

In  an  article  in  the  Deutsche  Kurier  of  Au- 
gust 4,  1915,  he  speaks  of  the  heroic  nation: 

Filled  with  the  firm  will  for  power  for  a 
greater  and  stronger  Germany,  we  do  not  aim  at 
Utopias  in  the  Black  Continent;  it  is  not  there 
that  our  future  lies.  So  long  as  England  can 
close  the  realm  of  proud  Amphitrite  all  posses- 
sions in  other  continents  are  insecure.  It  is  on 
the  soil  of  Europe  which  has  been  manured  by 
blood  that  there  is  growing  up  for  us  a  German 
crop,  and  we  will  still  the  tears  of  those  who  have 
given  their  dear  ones  if  we  can  say  to  them: 
Thy  son,  thy  husband  has  fallen  for  this  greater 
and  stronger  Germany  —  bloody  sacrifices  have 
been  offered,  and  more  will  fall;  they  must  pro- 
vide the  foundation  for  a  territorial  expansion 
of  our  country,  for  boundaries  in  the  East  and 
West  which  wilt  secure  us  peace  for  a  generation. 

In  the  Reichstag,  in  the  debate  of  August  20, 
1916,  he  spoke  in  similar  language  of  the  firm 


THE    PARTY    LEADERS  67 

determination  to  secure  frontiers  in  East  and 
West  which  would  forbid  the  repetition  of  so 
terrible  a  war. 

The  central  committee  of  the  party  has  ex- 
pressly approved  of  his  language,  and  in  a  meet- 
ing of  August  15  defined  the  objects  of  the  war 
as  follows: 

The  result  of  the  present  war  can  only  be  a 
peace  which,  by  enlarging  our  frontiers  on  the 
East  and  West  and  overseas,  gives  us  military, 
political,  and  industrial  security  against  new 
attacks,  and  recompenses  the  immense  sacrifices 
which  the  German  people  has  made  and  is  deter- 
mined to  continue  until  a  victorious  end. 

The  Freisinnige,  or  Progressive  People's  Party, 
are  the  small  remnants  of  the  once  powerful  party 
which  upheld  in  Germany  the  cause  of  liberalism 
and  free  trade.  On  this  matter  they  do  not 
differ  from  those  to  whom  they  are  generally 
opposed.  Their  committee  drew  up  a  resolu- 
tion on  December  4  and  5,  1915.  In  this  they 
state : 

The  committee  is  convinced  that  the  condi- 
tions of  peace  must  not  offer  to  the  German 
Empire,  as  our  opponents  still  continue  to  write, 
at  best  restoration  of  the  conditions  before  the 
war,  but  rather  permanent  protection  against 
foreign  attacks  and  a  permanent  increase  of 
power,  of  wealth,  and,  so  far  as  its  security  seems 
to  require,  also  of  territory. 


68  THE    ISSUE 

The  Centre  party  are  more  cautious.  They 
do  not  definitely  commit  themselves  to  the  re- 
quirement of  territorial  annexation.  In  their 
resolution  of  October  24,  1915,  they  say: 

The  external  conditions  for  a  prosperous  de- 
velopment of  the  German  people  are,  as  the 
experiences  of  the  war  fairly  show,  increased 
security  against  the  military  and  industrial  plans 
of  our  enemy  for  our  annihilation.  The  terrible 
sacrifices  which  the  country  has  laid  upon  our 
people  call  for  a  strengthened  protection  of  our 
land  in  East  and  West,  which  will  take  from  our 
enemies  the  wish  to  fall  upon  us  again  and  which 
will  permanently  secure  the  industrial  provision 
for  our  growing  population.  To  this  increased 
security  of  our  Empire  there  must  be  added  a 
similar  security  for  our  allied  States. 

If  they  have  not  in  their  own  party  meeting 
committed  themselves  to  the  policy  of  annexa- 
tion, they  joined  in  the  common  declaration  made 
by  all  the  parties,  except  the  Social  Democrats, 
in  the  great  sitting  of  December  9,  and  it  will  be 
noticed  that  the  spokesman  of  this  joint  mani- 
festation was  Dr.  Spahn,  the  leader  of  the  Centre. 
The  declaration  ends  as  follows: 

We  await  in  full  unity,  with  quiet  resolution, 
and,  let  me  add,  in  trust  in  God  the  hour  which 
makes  possible  peace  negotiations,  in  which  the 
military,  industrial,  and  political  interest  of  Ger- 
many must  be  completely  and  permanently  se- 


THE    PARTY    LEADERS  69 

cured,    including   those   extensions   of   territory 
which  are  necessary  for  this  purpose. 

We  have,  then,  the  unanimous  declaration  of 
the  parties  in  favour  of  annexations,  the  object  of 
which  is  what  they  call  the  security,  what  we 
call  the  domination  of  Germany;  for  for  them  no 
security  is  sufficient  which  leaves  any  one  strong 
enough  to  oppose  their  will.  But  these  annexa- 
tions must  be  the  forcible  conquest  of  men  of 
alien  race,  against  their  will.  Where  in  Europe 
is  there  a  single  village  that  desires  to  be  annexed 
to  Germany?  The  end  of  the  war  is,  then,  ac- 
cording to  these  men,  to  be  a  simple  reversion 
to  the  old  law  of  conquest,  a  return  to  the  days 
when  each  state  held  its  lands,  as  it  had  won 
them,  by  the  sword,  and  the  politics  of  Europe 
was  an  endless  scheming  and  struggle  for  terri- 
tory ;  for  that  which  is  won  by  the  sword  may  be 
lost  by  the  sword. 

This  solution  is  to  make  this  war  but  one  in  an 
endless  chain  of  wars,  but  it  is  the  one  which  the 
responsible  leaders  are  trying  to  force  upon  the 
Government. 

What  credit,  then,  are  we  to  give  to  the  Chan- 
cellor when  in  his  latest  speech  (April  5,  1916) 
he  says: 

What  is  it  that  gives  us  strength  to  continue 
fighting?  Who  can  seriously  believe  that  it  is 
lust  for  an  extension  of  our  frontiers  that  inspires 
our  storming  columns  before  Verdun,  and  makes 


70  THE    ISSUE 

them  accomplish  ever  more  heroic  deeds?  It  is 
not  for  a  piece  of  foreign  territory  that  Germany's 
sons  are  bleeding  and  dying. 

The  united  voices  of  the  responsible  and  elected 
representatives  of  the  people  give  him  the  lie. 
It  is  for  an  extension  of  territory  that  they  are 
fighting;  it  is  by  the  attainment  of  this  that  the 
tears  of  the  mothers  are  to  be  stilled.  If  this  is 
not  won,  the  sacrifices  will  have  been  in  vain. 

We  will  still  the  tears  of  those  who  have  given 
their  dear  ones  if  we  can  say  to  them:  Thy  son, 
thy  husband,  has  fallen  for  a  greater  and  stronger 
Germany;  bloody  sacrifices  have  been  offered, 
and  more  will  fall;  they  must  provide  the  foun- 
dation for  a  territorial  extension  of  our  country. 

And  let  it  not  be  thought  that  time  has  made 
any  real  change  in  their  desires.  The  insistence 
on  annexation  remains  to-day.  In  the  last 
debate  the  Chancellor,  as  always,  avoided  the 
word  "  annexation."  His  references  to  Belgium 
were  not  explicit  enough ;  all  that  he  spoke  of  was 
the  protection  of  the  Flemings.  It  might  seem 
that  he  was  hedging.  His  words  did  not  satisfy 
the  assembly,  and  he  had  to  be  corrected.  Once 
more  Dr.  Spahn  spoke  as  the  mouthpiece  of  his 
party,  and  this  time  he  insisted  that,  at  any  rate 
for  Belgium,  the  proposals  of  the  Chancellor  were 
insufficient. 


THE    PARTY    LEADERS  71 

Peace  aims  must  be  power  aims.  The  war 
must  end  with  a  tangible  result.  Towards  the 
East  the  Chancellor  has  held  one  out  to  us; 
towards  the  West  he  has  spoken  more  guardedly. 
In  respect  to  Belgium  he  has  said  that  we  must 
see  to  it  that  it  shall  no  longer  be  an  advanced 
post  of  England,  but  —  as  I  conceive  necessarily 
follows — pass  militarily,  politically,  economically 
into  our  hands. 

It  is  to  be  noted  that  the  Chancellor  had  avoided 
saying  this.  Dr.  Spahn  gives  to  his  words  a  force 
which  they  did  not  really  have.  It  is  not  an 
explanation,  but  a  correction ;  the  German  "  doss 
Belgien  in  unsere  Hdnde  kommt"  can  have  no 
meaning  but  annexation.  This  is  shown  by  the 
continuation : 

This  leaves  the  political  internal  organisation  of 
the  country  untouched.  This  will  be  decided  by 
peace  when  it  is  really  made.  We  wished  for  no 
war  of  conquest,  —  that  I  repeat  with  the  Chan- 
cellor, —  but  now  we  must  rectify  our  frontiers  in 
our  own  interests.  Our  enemies  must  not  remain 
untouched  in  their  political  and  military  nucleus. 

What  the  Chancellor  really  meant  is  discussed 
in  Chapter  III.  He  had  obviously  carefully 
chosen  his  words  so  as  to  leave  the  way  open  for 
a  settlement  which  would  secure  full  German 
control  without  a  formal  annexation.  This  was 
not  enough  for  the  representatives  of  the  German 
nation  or  the  Centre  Party.  They  would  not  be 


72  THE    ISSUE 

put  off  with  anything  short  of  an  explicit  declara- 
tion that  Belgium  was  to  become  German. 

It  is  interesting  to  quote  the  comment  of  the 
Kolnische  V olkszeitung,  one  of  the  most  impor- 
tant Catholic  papers  in  Germany : 

Unfortunately  the  war  aim,  which  the  Chan- 
cellor sketched  for  the  West,  is  not  so  clearly 
defined  [as  that  for  the  East].  This  the  leader 
of  the  Centre,  Spahn,  clearly  showed.  It  is  true 
that  the  Chancellor  promised  that  the  occupied 
countries  in  the  West,  in  which  the  blood  of  the 
people  had  flowed,  should  not  be  given  up  without 
a  complete  security  for  the  future.  It  is  true  that 
the  Chancellor  again  announced  real  guarantees 
that  Belgium  should  not  become  an  English- 
French  vassal-state,  and  should  not  be  used  as 
a  military  and  industrial  bulwark  built  out  against 
Germany.  The  Flemish  race,  which  has  so  long 
been  kept  down,  must  not  again  be  given  over  to 
Frenchification.  But  the  stormy  applause  and 
the  clapping,  with  which  his  announcement  of 
war  aims  in  the  East  was  followed,  could  not 
accompany  these  words  of  the  Chancellor,  be- 
cause they  sounded  indefinite.  It  is  to  be  wished 
that  the  Chancellor  had  spoken  with  equal  deci- 
sion and  firmness  about  the  war  aims  in  the  West, 
as  Spahn  did  amid  the  applause  of  the  House. 

It  is  the  old  story  —  they  will  be  satisfied  with 
nothing  less  than  that  Belgium  should  come  into 
the  absolute  possession  and  control  of  Germany. 
The  rest  of  the  debate  illustrated  this.  The 


THE    PARTY    LEADERS  73 

Socialist  speaker  protested  against  Dr.  Spahn's 
words,  for  he  desired  no  violence  to  other  na- 
tions. The  other  speakers  supported  Dr.  Spahn; 
the  National  Liberal  said  that,  as  to  Belgium, 
"  not  only  must  the  status  quo  ante  be  ex- 
cluded, but  the  military,  political,  and  economic 
supremacy  of  Germany  must  be  secured."  The 
Conservative  speaker  definitely  expressed  his 
disagreement  with  the  Socialists  on  this  point: 
"  treaties  would  not  be  sufficient ;  they  must  keep 
a  firm  hold  on  the  country." 

Now,  as  at  the  beginning  of  the  war,  the  aims 
of  the  nation  as  expressed  by  the  politicians  are 
the  extension  of  the  German  Empire  by  the  an- 
nexation to  it,  or  the  permanent  subjugation,  of 
at  least  Belgium  and  parts  of  Poland. 

And  even  if  there  is,  as  seems  to  be  the  case, 
a  growing  tendency  to  moderation  in  the  state- 
ment of  the  claim,  this  is  due  solely  to  the  events 
on  the  field  of  battle.  As  the  difficulties  of 
achievement  become  more  obvious  the  note  be- 
comes lower.  Once  again  we  see  the  effect  of  the 
war.  But  let  there  be  any  weakness  in  the  con- 
duct of  the  war,  let  the  French  relax  their  almost 
superhuman  efforts,  let  the  English  give  signs  of 
disunion,  let  the  Russians  hold  out  hopes  of  some 
accommodation,  and  immediately  the  strident  note 
would  once  more  be  heard ;  and  we  cannot  doubt 
that  it  would  have  been  heard  had  the  attack 
on  Verdun  met  with  the  success  that  was  hoped 
from  it. 


CHAPTER   III 

THE   GERMAN   CHANCELLOR   AND 
PEACE * 


DURING  the  last  few  months  the  world  has  been 
the  witness  of  a  new  phenomenon  —  the  German 
Chancellor  as  the  emissary  and  apostle  of  peace. 
If  we  are  to  believe  his  words  there  is  nothing 
which  he  and  the  German  Government,  of  which 
he  is,  if  not  the  guide  and  leader,  at  least  the 
figure-head  and  mouthpiece,  have  so  much  at 
heart  as  the  peace  of  Europe  and  the  freedom  of 
the  smaller  nations.  He  would  persuade  the 
world  that  if  the  war  continues  it  is  not  the 
fault  of  Germany  but  of  England,  that  his  own 
country,  now  as  always  the  model  of  reason  and 
justice,  does  not  stand  in  the  way  of  a  speedy  and 
permanent  peace. 

Those  who  have  followed  his  previous  attempts 
to  show  that  it  was  not  Germany  but  England 
that  was  responsible  for  the  outbreak  of  the  war 
will  not  expect  that  he  will  have  much  greater 
success  in  dealing  with  the  conclusion  of  it.  His 
task  is  indeed  as  difficult  in  the  one  case  as 

1  The  Nineteenth  Century  and  After,  July,  1916. 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    75 

in  the  other,  for  there  can  be  little  doubt  that 
in  both  he  is  the  advocate  of  a  policy  and  actions 
of  which  he  disapproves,  and  has  to  defend  be- 
fore the  public  that  which  he  opposed  in  the  coun- 
cil chamber;  and  one  often  feels  that  the  very 
violence  and  noisiness  of  his  protestations  are 
evidence  of  the  conscious  weakness  of  his  cause. 
His  attempts  to  throw  the  guilt  on  England  need 
not  trouble  us.  England  has  broad  shoulders, 
and  the  experience  of  many  centuries  of  history, 
an  experience  which  Germany  has  not  enjoyed, 
has  made  the  nation  indifferent  to  the  misrepre- 
sentations and  calumnies  which  are  the  inevitable 
accompaniment  of  a  prolonged  and  bitter  war. 
The  mind  of  the  nation  has  long  been  made  up. 
We  know  that  the  present  is  the  time  not  for 
words  but  for  deeds,  and  that  it  is  by  deeds,  not 
by  words,  that  peace  alone  can  be  achieved. 
England  will  go  on  her  way  and  continue  the 
work  that  she  has  undertaken,  not  from  any  love 
of  it,  but  because  no  other  course  is  possible. 

But  none  the  less  it  is  worth  while  to  inquire 
what  amount  of  truth  underlies  the  campaign  of 
assurances  and  protestations  that  the  Chancellor 
has  undertaken,  for,  if  not  here,  there  are  some 
in  other  countries  who  are  inclined  to  be  im- 
pressed, and  the  constant  reiteration  of  state- 
ments, however  remote  from  the  truth,  never 
fails  to  have  some  effect  on  opinion. 

What  are  the  claims  that  he  makes?  We  will 
give  them  in  his  own  words : 


76  THE    ISSUE 

Twice  within  the  last  few  months  Germany 
has  announced  before  the  world  her  readiness  to 
make  peace  on  a  basis  safeguarding  her  vital 
interests,  thus  indicating  that  it  is  not  Germany's 
fault  if  peace  is  still  withheld  from  the  nations  of 
Europe. 

These  words  are  taken  from  Herr  von  Jagow's 
despatch  to  the  German  Ambassador  in  America. 
They  are  corroborated  by  an  interview  of  the 
Chancellor  with  the  Chicago  journalists  on 
May  23 : 

Twice,  publicly,  I  stated  openly  that  Ger- 
many was  ready  to  negotiate  on  a  basis  which 
would  protect  her  against  future  attacks  by  a 
coalition  and  secure  the  peace  of  Europe. 

The  two  occasions  referred  to  are,  of  course, 
the  Chancellor's  speeches  in  the  Reichstag  in 
December  and  April  last.  We  had  all  read  these 
speeches  and  considered  their  bearing  on  the 
question  of  peace.  It  was  not  easy  to  know  how 
much  importance  we  should  attach  to  them.  We 
were  not  disposed  to  criticise  them  very  minutely ; 
we  remembered  the  difficulties  with  which  he 
was  confronted.  He  was  addressing  an  assembly 
of  his  own  people,  and  on  these  occasions  it 
seemed  probable  that  it  was  the  immediate  rather 
than  the  remoter  audience  which  he  had  in  mind. 
His  own  countrymen  might  well  be  to  him  of 
greater  importance  than  the  outer  world.  His 


THE   CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE     77 

first  duty  must  be  to  preserve  unity  at  home.    It 
was  not  an  easy  one. 

He  was  confronted  by  two  great  masses  of 
opinion  supremely  antipathetic  to  one  another 
and  each  very  suspicious  of  him  and  the  Govern- 
ment. He  could  not  risk  offending  either,  and  if 
possible  he  must  aim  at  maintaining  the  tem- 
porary but  uncertain  truce  which  existed.  On 
the  one  side  was  the  bloc  of  the  biirgerliche  par- 
ties insistent  that  the  war  in  which  Germany  had, 
as  it  seemed  to  them,  won  such  great  successes, 
should  not  be  allowed  to  conclude  without  a  strik- 
ing addition  to  German  strength  and  territory; 
on  the  other  side  the  Socialists,  who  insisted 
that  the  war  should  not  be  continued  a  moment 
longer  than  was  necessary,  and  whose  formula 
was  that  no  humiliation  of  other  nations  was  per- 
missible. If  he  offended  the  first  his  own  position 
would  be  compromised.  We  can  well  believe 
that  Herr  von  Bethmann-Hollweg,  who  has 
already  sacrificed  so  much  on  the  altar  of  patriot- 
ism, would  willingly  leave  the  office  he  holds 
were  he  to  think  that  this  would  be  for  the  benefit 
of  his  country;  but  he  could  not  but  know  that, 
were  he  to  fall,  his  place  would  in  all  probability 
be  taken  by  one  who  would  be  a  mere  instru- 
ment in  the  hands  of  the  chauvinists,  and  he 
realises  well  how  essential  it  is  to  keep  up  at  least 
the  appearance  of  moderation.  Did  he  alienate 
the  Socialists,  then  the  unity  of  the  nation  would 
be  destroyed  and  the  Government  would  no 


78  THE    ISSUE 

longer  be  assured  of  the  moral  support  of  the 
nation,  which  alone  would  enable  it  to  contend 
against  the  hardships  which  he  could  see  ap- 
proaching. Were  he  to  commit  the  Government 
to  a  policy  of  annexation,  a  great  agitation 
would  be  started  with  the  cry  that  the  blood 
of  the  German  soldiers  was  being  shed,  not 
for  the  protection  of  the  Fatherland,  but  for 
aggression. 

We  were,  therefore,  more  inclined  to  regard 
these  speeches  as  evidence  of  the  position  of 
parties  and  opinions  in  Germany  than  as  a  seri- 
ous contribution  to  the  question  of  peace.  We 
seemed  justified  in  this  view  because  the  terms 
held  out  were  of  such  a  kind  that  he  must  himself 
have  known  that  they  could  not  for  a  moment 
have  been  considered  by  the  states  with  which 
Germany  is  at  war,  as  they  were  terms  which 
completely  conceded  to  Germany  every  matter 
of  controversy.  Now,  however,  the  situation  is 
changed.  The  German  Government  officially 
refers  to  them  as  proof  that  it  is  not  Germany 
which  is  prolonging  the  war.  They  are  used  to 
throw  the  onus  for  this  upon  the  Allies,  and 
especially  upon  England.  We  must,  therefore, 
examine  them  more  carefully  than  we  need  other- 
wise have  done. 

II 

The  Chancellor  alludes  to  two  speeches,  but 
we  have  in  reality  four,  for  on  four  occasions  the 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    79 

Chancellor  has  spoken  of  the  end  of  the  war,  and 
the  two  later  to  which  he  specifically  refers  can- 
not be  understood  unless  read  in  connexion  with 
the  two  earlier. 

The  first  was  delivered  on  May  28,  1915.  It  is 
chiefly  occupied  with  the  change  in  the  situation 
caused  by  the  entrance  of  Italy  into  the  war. 
At  the  end  he  considers  the  general  position,  and 
sums  it  up  in  the  following  words : 

Gentlemen,  if  the  Governments  of  the  coun- 
tries hostile  to  us  believe  that  they  can  put  off 
the  day  of  awakening  by  deceiving  the  people 
and  can  conceal  the  responsibility  for  the  crime 
of  this  war,  they  are  stirring  up  blind  hatred. 
We,  supported  on  our  good  confidence,  on  our 
just  cause,  and  on  our  victorious  sword,  will  not 
allow  ourselves  to  be  moved  a  hair's-breadth 
from  the  course  which  we  have  recognised  as  the 
right  one.  In  the  midst  of  this  confusion  of 
spirit  and  feelings,  the  German  people  goes  its 
own  way,  quietly,  and  in  confidence.  It  is  not  with 
hatred  that  we  wage  this  war,  but  with  anger, 
holy  anger.  The  greater  is  the  danger  which, 
surrounded  by  enemies  on  every  side,  we  have  to 
endure,  the  more  the  love  for  our  home  stirs  our 
heart,  the  more  we  care  for  our  children  and 
grandchildren,  so  much  the  more  must  we  endure 
till  we  have  gained  and  created  every  possible 
real  guarantee  and  security,  so  that  none  of  our 
enemies  —  not  alone,  not  united  —  will  again 
venture  on  a  trial  of  strength  with  us.  [Enthusi- 
astic applause,  shouts  of  "  Bravo,"  and  clapping 


8o  THE    ISSUE 

of  hands  in  the  House  and  among  the  spectators.] 
The  wilder  is  the  storm  that  rages  round  us,  the 
firmer  must  we  build  up  our  own  house  for 
ourselves. 

Here,  then,  we  have  the  pose  assumed  by  the 
German  Nation  —  injured  innocence,  a  just 
cause,  and  a  victorious  sword.  A  glorious  spec- 
tacle; a  nation  disturbed  in  the  peaceful  work  of 
culture;  but  willingly  she  accepts  the  challenge 
and  goes  her  way  surrounded  by  enemies  —  a 
modern  Galahad  without  hate,  but  in  holy  anger. 
Of  course,  we  might  point  out  that  the  holy  anger 
of  the  German  Nation  is  lightly  kindled,  that 
they  do  not  know  the  difference  themselves  be- 
tween hate  and  anger.  Else  why  this  collection 
of  one  hundred  poems  of  hate,  of  which  Lis- 
sauer's  is  merely  the  best  known ;  else  why  these 
enthusiastic  appreciations  of  the  young  art  and 
literature  which  are  to  be  built  up  on  the  basis  of 
hate;  else  why  Professor  Sombart  and  Professor 
Lasson,  who  tell  us  that  the  hatred  of  England  is 
shared  by  the  whole  nation  down  to  the  cab- 
drivers  of  Berlin? 

Not  hate,  but  holy  anger.  The  sentiment 
seems  strangely  familiar.  "  I  feel  no  hatred," 
observed  Mr.  Pecksniff.  "  I  am  hurt,  I  am 
wounded,  but  I  have  no  malevolence.  If  there  is 
anger  in  my  bosom  it  is,  I  hope,  a  sacred  and, 
shall  I  say,  a  holy  emotion;  but  I  do  not  hate 
you,  my  good  sir,  I  do  not  hate  you." 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND    PEACE     81 

That  which  concerns  us,  however,  are  the  last 
words,  for  they  show  what  is  the  end  to  be 
achieved  —  "a  real  guarantee,  a  security,"  so 
that  "  no  one  of  our  enemies,  alone  or  united, 
will  ever  again  venture  to  take  up  arms  against 
us." 

It  is  a  thought  which  constantly  recurs;  it  is 
the  key  of  his  speeches,  just  as  the  freedom  of 
the  small  nations  and  the  destruction  of  Prussian 
militarism  is  that  of  Mr.  Asquith's ;  it  is  his  one 
contribution  to  the  peace  controversy. 

Ill 

In  his  next  speech  it  is  explained  and  expanded. 
This  was  delivered  on  August  18.  He  could  then 
speak  with  greater  decision  and  certainty;  Ger- 
many had  won  great  and  perhaps  unexpected 
successes.  Warsaw  had  fallen,  and  nearly  the 
whole  of  Congress  Poland  was  occupied  by  Ger- 
man and  Austrian  troops.  The  English  offensive 
at  Neuve  Chapelle  had  failed;  there  seemed 
every  prospect  that  Germany  would  at  the  worst 
be  able  to  hold  all  she  had  won  in  the  West,  while 
she  could  look  forward  to  fresh  conquests  in  the 
East. 

And  so  with  even  greater  confidence  he  fore- 
shadows the  permanent  "  freedom  "  of  Poland 
from  Russia,  and  in  his  peroration  opens  out  the 
prospect  of  a  new  Europe  firmly  established  on 
the  victories  of  Germany : 


82  THE    ISSUE 

The  war,  the  longer  it  lasts,  will  leave  Europe 
bleeding  from  a  thousand  wounds.  The  world 
that  will  arise  then  shall  and  will  not  look  as  our 
enemies  dream.  They  strive  for  the  restitution 
of  the  old  Europe  .  .  .  with  a  powerless  Ger- 
many as  the  tributary  of  a  gigantic  Russian  Em- 
pire. .  .  .  No,  this  gigantic  world  war  will  not 
bring  back  the  old  situation.  A  new  must  arise. 
If  Europe  is  to  come  to  peace  it  can  only  be  by  the 
inviolable  and  strong  position  of  Germany.  .  .  . 
The  English  balance  of  power  must  disappear, 
because  it  is,  as  the  English  poet  Shaw  recently 
said,  "  a  hatching  of  other  wars." 

We  cannot  read  the  last  words  without  calling 
to  mind  former  speeches  made  on  the  same  spot 
by  the  greatest  of  his  predecessors.  Strange  in- 
deed it  is  to  hear  the  successor  of  Bismarck  ap- 
pealing on  the  questions  of  international  principle 
and  policy  to  the  amateur  diplomacy  of  an  Eng- 
lish playwright,  and  one  is  sure  that  no  one  will 
have  more  readily  recognised  the  full  humour  of 
the  position  than  the  entertaining  author  whom 
he  quotes.  It  was  not  on  such  authorities  that 
Bismarck  depended  when  he  dealt  with  questions 
of  peace  and  war.  But  then  he  had  spent  a  life- 
time in  studying  the  rules  and  principles  of  inter- 
national relationships;  the  creation  and  dissolu- 
tion of  coalitions  was  to  him  the  normal  instru- 
ment of  policy.  To  him  the  attitude  of  his  suc- 
cessor would  have  been  the  incapacity  of  the 
clumsy  workman  who  will  in  a  fit  of  irritation 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    83 

throw  away  and  destroy  the  machine  which  he  is 
incapable  of  using. 

And  observe  the  subtle  dishonesty  of  this  com- 
parison. He  speaks  of  the  contrast  of  two 
Europes  —  that  before  1870  and  a  Europe  of 
the  future ;  a  Europe  with  a  divided  and  helpless 
Germany  and  a  Europe  in  which  Germany  is  the 
sole  predominant  power.  But  there  was  another 
Europe  which  he  does  not  mention  —  a  Europe 
in  which  Germany  took  its  place  as  one  among 
the  other  kindred  states  —  strong,  united,  self- 
governing,  with  full  and  complete  opportunities 
for  internal  development,  and  able  to  share  in  the 
division  and  rule  of  other  continents ;  but  a  Ger- 
many willing  to  keep  its  place  as  one  of  many 
equal  powers.  There  was  such  a  Germany,  the 
Germany  of  the  eighties,  the  Germany  which 
declined  the  very  idea  of  further  accessions  of 
territory,  the  Germany  which  was  a  satiated 
state ;  it  was  a  Germany  which  just  for  this  rea- 
son enjoyed  the  confidence  of  other  countries, 
and  was  exposed  to  no  attack.  And  this  Germany, 
when  it  naturally  looked  for  colonial  possessions, 
recognised  that  all  extension  of  influence  and 
territory  must  be  the  result  of  agreement  and 
bargaining  with  the  other  powers.  And  this 
Germany,  based  on  the  inviolable  security  at 
home,  provided  for  its  people  a  free  scope  for  the 
unparalleled  development  of  their  institutions, 
both  by  growth  at  home  and  by  free  development 
abroad. 


84  THE    ISSUE 

But  much  has  changed  since  then. 

At  least  we  cannot  complain  that  the  pro- 
gramme is  obscure:  the  war  is  to  be  continued, 
as  he  concludes  his  speech,  "  till  the  road  becomes 
free  for  the  new  liberated  Europe,  free  of  French 
intrigue,  Muscovite  desire  of  conquest,  and  Eng- 
lish guardianship."  So  a  new  Europe  will  arise 
that  is  dependent  entirely  on  Germany,  a  new 
Europe  in  which  Germany  will  be  so  strong  as 
to  be  unassailable,  a  new  Europe  which  will  be 
freed  from  the  influence  of  England  and  France 
and  Russia,  and  in  which  all  nations  will  depend 
for  their  freedom  on  Germany,  for  "  we  are  and 
will  remain  the  shield  of  peace  and  freedom  of 
large  and  small  nations."  This  will  indeed  be  a 
new  Europe.  There  was  an  old  Europe  which  we 
all  knew,  a  free  and  equal  federation  of  states 
and  nations,  joint  inheritors  of  a  common  civili- 
sation and  common  religion,  in  which  each  played 
its  part  and  contributed  its  own  share  to  the 
common  life.  Each  is  the  guardian  of  its  own 
traditions,  and  all  profit  by  the  contributions  of 
the  others.  In  this  Europe  no  state  can  take 
its  share  unless  it  is  assured  of  full  and  complete 
independence  and  political  self-determination, 
for,  as  none  know  so  well  and  tell  us  so  often  as 
the  Germans,  political  sovereignty  is  the  neces- 
sary condition  for  the  development  of  internal 
culture.  In  the  old  Europe  this  independence  and 
sovereignty  were  maintained  by  a  highly  artifi- 
cial equilibrium  which  secures  that  no  state  can 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND    PEACE    85 

be  deprived  of  its  independence,  for  each  can 
appeal  to  the  protection  of  the  common  con- 
science. It  is  the  justice  which,  as  we  learn  from 
Plato,  is  the  union  of  the  weak  against  the  strong, 
and  is  the  only  protection  against  the  tyrant  or 
the  tyrant  state.  It  was  a  Europe  in  which,  side 
by  side  with  Germany  and  Austria,  England, 
France,  Italy  and  Russia  each  played  its  part, 
and  in  which  the  ruling  and  controlling  force 
was  to  be  found  not  in  the  arbitrary  power  of 
a  single  state,  but  in  the  result  of  the  discus- 
sions, negotiations,  and  compromises  between 
them  all. 

This  Europe  the  Chancellor  would  destroy, 
and  the  announcement  of  his  purpose  he  calls 
suggestions  for  peace.  By  the  refusal  to  con- 
sider any  such  terms  "  our  enemies,"  he  says, 
"  will  incur  a  terrible  blood-guiltiness." 

We  can  picture  to  ourselves  this  new  Europe 
which  he  will  create  in  its  place,  this  Europe 
freed  from  the  English  doctrine  of  the  balance  of 
power.  We  know  it  well:  it  was  the  Europe 
that  Napoleon  created.  A  Europe  in  which  there 
is  a  single  emperor  throned  in  his  imperial  city, 
surrounded  by  an  obsequious  band  of  subject  and 
obedient  princes,  who  attend  and  decorate  his 
court,  and  who  at  the  call  of  war  will  lead  out 
their  armies  to  take  their  place  by  his  side.  A 
Europe  in  which  the  mineral  wealth  and  manu- 
facturing skill  of  the  Poles  and  Flemings  would 
be  at  the  service  of  the  German  system  as  surely 


86  THE    ISSUE 

as  if  they  were  incorporated  in  one  of  the  Ger- 
man States.  If  this  were  won,  then  indeed  the 
war  would  not  have  been  fought  in  vain  by  Ger- 
many, and  this  is  the  aim  which  the  Chancellor 
constantly  puts  before  his  people,  disguised 
under  the  specious  phrase  "  security."  For  why 
is  this  change  from  the  old  Europe  to  the  new  to 
be  made  ?  For  the  security  of  Germany.  It  is  a 
high  price  we  are  asked  to  pay.  Germany  wishes 
to  pursue  her  peaceful  work  of  culture  free  from 
the  menace  of  foreign  invasion.  It  is  a  natural 
desire.  It  is  what  every  state  wishes,  and  that  to 
which  the  policy  of  every  state  has  been  directed. 
It  is  an  idea  that  should  be  attained  by  all.  To  a 
large  extent  it  has,  as  a  matter  of  fact,  been  won 
for  England  alone,  and  it  is  just  for  this  reason 
that  no  other  country  can  so  well  sympathise  as 
can  England  with  the  desire  of  other  states.  We 
have  often  heard  in  the  past  of  this  security. 
It  was  for  this  that  the  Allies  fought  and  won  in 
1814.  It  was  then  established  by  mutual  agree- 
ment between  the  Powers,  and  by  the  system 
under  which  no  one  power  was  so  great  that  it 
could  with  impunity  assail  any  other,  and  by  so 
arranging  the  map  of  Europe  that  if  any  one 
state  threatened  the  common  security  of  the 
other,  a  coalition  would  quickly  be  formed  by 
which  this  would  be  prevented.  The  settlement 
of  1815  gave  security  not  to  one  but  to  all  the 
nations,  not  only  to  the  victors  but  to  the  de- 
feated, to  Prussia,  to  Austria,  to  Germany,  and 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND    PEACE    87 

in  an  equal  extent  to  France.  The  system  was  a 
complicated  one,  it  seemed  mechanical;  but,  in 
fact,  as  far  as  anything  can  be  secured  in  a  fabric 
so  imperfect  and  changing  as  political  affairs,  it 
answered  its  purpose.  In  bringing  this  about 
England  took  a  chief  part,  and  it  has  always 
been  the  object  of  English  policy  to  help  in 
maintaining  the  security,  not  of  one,  but  of  all 
nations. 

But  is  this  the  German  idea  as  put  forward  by 
the  Chancellor?  It  is  exactly  the  reverse.  The 
English  idea  is  security  for  all ;  the  German  solu- 
tion is  security  for  Germany  and  for  Germany 
alone,  and  a  security  won  by  making  Germany 
so  strong  that  she  can  stand  out  against  the 
whole  of  Europe.  A  Germany  that  could  feel 
herself  able  to  withstand  the  united  public  opin- 
ion of  Europe  is,  however,  a  Germany  which  is 
able  also  to  impose  her  will  on  each  individual 
state.  Germany  is  to  be  secure ;  but  what  about 
France?  What  about  Russia?  What  about 
Italy?  What  about  Holland?  On  what  has  this 
security  of  Holland  in  the  past  depended?  On 
nothing  but  the  knowledge  that  an  attack  upon 
Holland  would  involve  war  with  England  and 
with  France,  and  Germany  was  not  strong 
enough  to  encounter  this  danger.  The  terms  of 
peace  suggested  by  the  Chancellor  are  definitely 
and  categorically  that  Germany  should  be  so 
strong  that  she  would  be  able  to  look  with  in- 
difference on  an  alliance  not  only  of  France  and 


88  THE    ISSUE 

England,  but  of  France  and  England  supported 
by  Russia  and  Italy. 

IV 

In  this  speech  he  still  confines  himself  to  gen- 
eralities; he  states  the  general  objects  to  be 
attained,  but  does  not  specify  the  particular 
methods  by  which  they  will  be  won. 

The  next  speech  was  delivered  in  December, 
1915,  and  in  it  he  moves  a  step  forward,  though 
always  with  great  caution.  This  is  the  one  in 
which  he  himself  tells  us  that  we  are  to  find  his 
peace  proposals.  The  debate  during  the  course 
of  which  they  were  made  had  been  carefully 
heralded  in  the  press.  Great  expectations  had 
been  aroused.  New  and  great  successes  had  been 
won.  Serbia  had  gone  the  way  of  Poland  and 
Belgium.  The  road  to  Constantinople  had  been 
cleared,  and,  except  where  the  Allies  clung  to  the 
narrow  strip  of  land  about  Salonica,  Germany 
and  Austria  were  supreme  in  the  western  Bal- 
kans. It  was  a  great  success,  diplomatic  as  well 
as  military,  and  it  might  well  be  the  beginning  of 
greater  successes  in  the  future;  for,  now  that 
the  connexion  with  Turkey  had  been  established, 
what  might  not  be  done  in  the  East  ?  Egypt  and 
Persia  were  open,  and  at  last  might  it  not  be  that 
a  fatal  blow  might  be  struck  at  that  which  the 
Germans  have  come  to  think  is  the  nerve-centre 
of  the  British  Empire? 

The  Chancellor  made  two  speeches.    The  first 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    89 

need  not  detain  us.  We  need  not  grudge  him  the 
paean  over  the  victories  that  had  been  won,  for 
in  truth  they  had  been  great,  greater  probably 
than  had  been  anticipated;  nor  his  pleasure  at 
the  diplomatic  victories  in  the  Balkans :  hcec 
olim  meminisse  juvabit.  Nor  need  we  demur 
to  his  description  of  the  strength  of  Germany  as 
shown  by  the  works  of  peace  carried  out  behind 
the  line  of  battle.  It  is  no  consolation  to  the 
Allies,  nor  will  it  help  in  an  accommodation,  that 
even  during  the  time  of  war  Germany's  civil 
government  is  being  firmly  established  over  Bel- 
gium, and  that  the  organisation  of  the  Belgian 
schools  has  been  made  subservient  to  the  cause 
of  Teutonism. 

In  truth  the  natural  delight  expressed  by  the 
Chancellor  in  the  achievements  of  the  German 
people  has  a  double  edge.  For,  after  all,  the  very 
strength  of  their  armies  and  the  degree  of  success 
which  they  have  attained  is  the  best  justification 
of  the  cause  of  the  Allies.  Had  it  appeared  that 
the  German  Nation  was  not  really  prepared  for  a 
great  offensive  war,  then  the  apprehensions 
caused  by  German  ambition  would  not  have  been 
justified.  Had  the  raid  on  Belgium  shown  itself 
to  be  a  hasty  improvisation  undertaken  in  a  not 
unnatural  panic,  then  it  might  have  been  con- 
tended that  the  Triple  Entente  was  an  unneces- 
sary, and  therefore  wanton,  threat  to  German 
security.  What  we  see  was,  in  fact,  a  strength 
far  greater  than  anyone  suspected,  a  degree  of 


go  THE    ISSUE 

preparation  which  could  only  be  explained  on  the 
hypothesis  of  a  long-matured  plan  for  conquest, 
worked  out  in  all  its  details  during  peace  and  car- . 
ried  out  on  an  arranged  programme.  The  Chan- 
cellor complains  that  the  Allies  refuse  to  accept 
the  verdict  of  the  war  and  give  way  to  the  suc- 
cesses of  the  German  army ;  but  does  not  he  see 
it  is  the  very  success  of  Germany  that  makes 
peace  impossible,  unless  the  success  is  carried  to 
that  point  that  all  possibility  of  resistance  is 
broken  down? 

This  speech  was  the  preliminary.  At  an  ad- 
journed sitting  it  was  followed  by  the  real  debate. 
This  was  opened  by  Herr  Scheidemann,  who 
spoke  on  behalf  of  the  Socialist  majority.  If 
report  is  true,  and  we  may  well  believe  it,  his 
interpellation  had  been  arranged  beforehand  be- 
tween his  party  and  the  Government.  His  speech 
was  very  remarkable  and  deserves  to  be  remem- 
bered. He  began  by  pointing  out  that  a  war  of 
this  kind  differed  from  the  normal  war  between 
small  states ;  in  the  latter  it  might  be  possible  for 
one  party  to  declare  itself  defeated  and  therefore 
to  beg  for  peace,  but,  he  added,  "  in  a  war  which 
involves  nearly  the  whole  of  Europe  it  is  impos- 
sible for  one  party  to  be  forced  down  upon  his 
knees,"  and  he  draws  the  conclusion  that  in  such 
a  war  the  first  proposals  of  peace  must  come,  not 
from  the  defeated,  but  the  victorious,  nation. 
Germany  so  far  has  been  victorious;  it  is  there- 
fore Germany  which  must  speak  the  first  word. 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    91 

He  definitely  rejected  the  common  conception 
that  to  be  the  first  to  speak  of  peace  was  a  sign 
of  weakness. 

On  what  terms,  then,  could  Germany  offer 
peace?  While  repudiating  any  weakness  as  re- 
gards the  voices  in  enemy  countries  which  de- 
manded the  crushing  and  destruction  of  Ger- 
many, he  equally  dissociated  himself  from  those 
Germans  who  ask  for  annexation1: 

We  will  not  conceal  from  ourselves  the  fact 
that  in  this  country,  too,  claims  of  conquest  have 
been  put  together  which  no  sensible  man  in  the 
Empire  would  think  of  realising.  My  party  has 
always  strongly  opposed  this.  Abroad  these 
claims  were  looked  upon  as  sufficient  reason  for 
continuing  the  war.  Annexation  would  weaken 
the  sovereign  rights  of  nations  and,  for  Germany 
in  particular,  the  strength  and  unity  of  the  Ger- 
man National  State.  Our  foreign  political  rela- 
tions would  thereby  be  seriously  impaired.  It 
would  produce  an  increased  danger  of  war  and 
an  addition  to  the  burden  of  our  armaments. 
We  are,  therefore,  decidedly  opposed  to  all  who 
wish  to  convert  this  war  into  one  of  conquest. 

In  the  following  passage  he  is  equally  emphatic 
in  his  rejection  of  all  claims  against  the  German 
Empire  and  its  security : 

It  has  been  said  abroad  that  there  can  be  no 
question  of  peace  until  German  militarism  has 
been  destroyed  and  Alsace-Lorraine  given  back 


92  THE    ISSUE 

to  France.  Our  opponents'  ideas  of  militarism 
differ  from  our  own.  By  militarism  we  do  not 
mean  the  army  in  which  our  sons  and  brothers 
serve.  What  we  combat  as  militarism  is  a  matter 
to  be  decided  only  within  the  bounds  of  our  own 
country,  just  as  French  militarism  and  English 
naval  ism  must  be  decided  beyond  the  Vosges  and 
the  Channel.  Of  course,  we  will  hear  nothing  of 
a  separation  from  Alsace-Lorraine. 

He  concludes  by  pointing  out  that  the  danger 
to  German  integrity  and  independence  is  over : 

East  Prussia  has  shown  what  was  the  extent 
of  the  Russian  danger.  There  are  now  no  longer 
any  immediate  dangers  threatening  our  frontiers. 
It  is,  therefore,  our  duty  to  ask  the  Imperial 
Chancellor  on  what  terms  he  is  willing  to  nego- 
tiate for  peace.  The  German  Nation  will  not 
wage  war  a  day  longer  than  is  absolutely  neces- 
sary to  attain  its  ends.  For  the  independence  of 
our  land  our  people  will  do  their  utmost,  but  for 
the  special  interests  of  capitalists  it  will  not  risk 
the  life  of  a  single  soldier.  When  our  comrades 
hastened  to  the  standard,  they  did  not  do  so  to 
subject  the  world  to  the  will  of  Germany,  but  to 
prevent  our  position  as  a  country  from  being 
shattered  by  a  tremendous  hostile  coalition.  A 
peaceful  people  like  the  Germans  can  be  un- 
manned by  rage,  but  does  not  revel  in  thoughts  of 
vengeance  and  destruction. 

We  may  publicly  declare  that  we  want  peace 
because  the  Germans  are  strong  and  determined 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    93 

enough  to  go  on  defending  hearth  and  home  if 
our  adversaries  will  not  have  peace.  The  whole 
world  is  waiting  in  breathless  expectation  for  the 
Imperial  Chancellor's  reply.  I  hope  he  will  find 
the  word  of  salvation  and  express  his  readiness  to 
make  peace.  Then  to-day's  parliamentary  sitting 
will  be  an  important  one  in  history.  We  wish  the 
first  decisive  step  towards  the  conclusion  of  this 
fearful  war  to  be  taken  by  Germany. 

These  were  notable  words.  They  afforded  an 
opening  on  which  it  would,  in  truth,  have  been 
possible  for  the  Chancellor  to  have  done  what  he 
professes  to  have  done,  to  have  opened  the  way 
for  some  kind  of  negotiation.  How  were  they 
met  ?  We  have  a  definite  and  categorical  refusal 
both  in  form  and  in  substance.  Herr  Scheide- 
mann  had  made  two  points :  first,  that  Germany, 
just  because  she  had  been  victorious,  could  open 
the  way  for  discussion;  the  second,  that  any 
terms  which  Germany  might  suggest  should  not 
include  claims  of  conquest  which  would  naturally 
strengthen  the  resolution  of  her  enemies.  Both 
suggestions  were  rejected.  The  Chancellor  made 
a  long  and  involved  speech  of  which  a  large  part 
was  devoted  to  a  violent  attack  upon  England, 
but  when  at  the  end  he  comes  to  the  real  issue  he 
has  nothing  to  say.  As  to  the  first  point  he  would 
not  accept  Scheidemann's  suggestion.  Germany 
could  not  offer  terms :  that  was  the  function  of 
the  defeated.  It  was  from  the  enemy  that  the 
first  step  must  be  looked  for : 


94  THE    ISSUE 

So  long  as  the  tangle  of  guilt  and  ignorance 
continues  amongst  those  in  power  among  our 
enemies,  and  their  intellectual  attitude  governs 
the  hostile  peoples,  any  offer  of  peace  on  our  side 
would  be  folly,  which  would  not  shorten  but 
would  prolong  the  war.  This  we  must  take  into 
account.  With  peace  suggestions  on  our  side 
we  shall  not  advance,  and  above  all  we  shall  not 
come  to  any  result.  Peace  proposals  of  our 
enemies,  which  correspond  to  the  dignity  and 
security  of  the  German  Empire,  —  I  constantly 
repeat  it,  —  we  are  always  ready  to  discuss. 

The  self-deception  is  that  the  enemy  did  not 
believe  that  they  were  defeated,  that  they  did  not 
recognise  that  the  war  was  decided.  No  pro- 
posals, therefore,  would  be  made  by  Germany 
in  the  capacity  of  victor.  The  Chancellor  tells 
us  that  he  will  not  refuse  to  consider  offers  that 
are  made  to  him;  so  far  his  condescension  will 
go.  Like  another  Napoleon,  he  will  not  refuse  to 
listen  to  those  who  come  to  him  as  suppliants  for 
peace,  and  then  he  proceeds  to  tell  us  what  the 
terms  will  be.  The  words  are  familiar,  but  we 
must  quote  them  in  full : 

It  shall  not  be  said  that  we  have  prolonged 
the  war  for  a  single  day  because  we  wished  to 
conquer  this  or  that  additional  pledge.  In  my 
earlier  speeches  I  have  explained  the  general! 
aims  of  the  war.  I  cannot  go  into  details  to-day. 
I  cannot  say  what  guarantees  the  Imperial  Gov- 
ernment will  require  —  e.g.,  in  the  Belgian  ques- 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND    PEACE    95 

tion,  what  foundation  of  power  it  will  consider 
necessary  for  these  guarantees.  But  one  thing  our 
enemies  must  see  themselves :  the  longer  and  the 
more  bitterly  they  wage  war  against  us,  the  more 
will  grow  the  guarantees  that  are  necessary  for  us. 

So  far  we  have,  then,  the  old  conception  of  guar- 
antees for  the  future  greatness  and  security  of  Ger- 
many —  guarantees  which  are  to  be  based  on  an 
undefined  increase  of  power.  Then  he  proceeds : 

If  our  enemies  will  for  all  future  time  erect 
a  barrier  between  Germany  and  the  rest  of  the 
world,  they  cannot  wonder  if  we  also  arrange 
our  future  on  similar  lines.  Neither  in  the  East 
nor  in  the  West  must  our  enemies  of  to-day 
dispose  of  gates  through  which  they  can  fall 
upon  us  and  threaten  us  more  sharply  than  they 
have  done  in  the  past.  It  is  known  that  France 
gave  her  loans  to  Russia  only  on  the  express 
condition  that  Russia  should  build  her  Polish 
fortresses  and  railways  against  us ;  and  it  is  just 
as  well  known  that  England  and  France  looked  on 
Belgium  as  a  starting-point  for  an  attack  on  us. 
Against  that  we  must  protect  ourselves  politically, 
militarily  and  economically  we  must  secure  our 
development.  What  is  necessary  for  this  must 
be  attained.  I  think  that  there  is  no  one  in  the 
German  Fatherland  who  does  not  desire  these 
ends.  What  means  are  necessary  for  this  end  — 
on  that  we  keep  the  decision  in  our  own  hands. 

Now  the  Chancellor  himself  refers  to  this 
speech  as  the  authentic  expression  of  German 


96  THE    ISSUE 

peace  terms.  It  is  the  only  one  that  we  have 
yet  had.  There  is  nothing  in  his  later  speech 
to  alter  them.  Here  he  says  nothing  about 
Austria,  the  East,  and  the  other  fields  of  war; 
he  confines  himself  to  that  which  immediately 
and  solely  affects  Germany,  and  his  terms  are 
categorically  that  Poland  and  Belgium  are  to 
be  brought  under  the  commercial,  military,  and 
political  control  of  Germany.  How  this  is  to  be 
done  he  does  not  say;  he  does  not  commit  him- 
self to  or  against  annexation;  the  future  rela- 
tions of  Poland  to  Austria  are  for  obvious  rea- 
sons left  untouched.  But  these  are  matters  which 
do  not  concern  the  enemies  of  Germany;  they 
are  matters  on  which  Germany  will  at  her  own 
good  time  give  her  decision.  What  does  concern 
the  Allies,  and  what  especially  concerns  England, 
is  that  Poland  and  Belgium  are  in  some  form  or 
another  to  be  brought  into  the  German  system, 
so  that  Germany  will  have  guarantees  that  for 
the  future  she  shall  have  control  over  them.1 

1  In  his  latest  speech  on  September  29,  1916,  the  Chancellor 
has  again  referred  to  this  speech  as  containing  the  authentic 
evidence  of  his  willingness  to  make  peace  on  reasonable  terms: 

"From  the  very  first  day  the  war  meant  for  us  nothing 
but  the  defence  of  our  right  to  life,  freedom,  and  development. 
For  this  reason  we  were  the  first  and  the  only  ones  to  declare 
our  readiness  for  peace  negotiations.  On  December  9  of  last 
year  I  spoke  of  this  clearly  enough,  and  have  since  repeated 
it.  Mr.  Asquith  and  Lord  Robert  Cecil  cannot  do  away 
with  my  words  by  the  statement  that  we  had  announced  no 
conditions  of  peace,  or  only  such  as  were  intolerable  and 
humiliating.  We  have  done  our  part." 

The  reader  must  judge  for  himself  whether  terms  of  peace 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    97 

In  the  circumstances  in  which  it  was  made 
this  speech  was  well  devised.  It  gave  a  formula 
which  enabled  the  Government  to  avoid  commit- 
ting itself  to  the  party  of  the  annexationists  or  of 
opposing  them.  It  was  admirably  suited  to  keep 
up  the  unity  of  the  German  Nation,  and  at  least 
for  a  time  it  answered  that  purpose ;  but  what  are 
we  to  think  of  the  statesmanship  of  the  man  who 
months  later  refers  to  it  as  evidence  of  his  will- 
ingness to  make  peace,  who  supposes  that  this 
formula  may  be  the  beginning  of  negotiations  ? 

One  can  indeed  imagine  circumstances  in  which 
these  terms  would  be  a  fitting  basis  for  negotia- 
tions. If  the  German  armies  had  occupied,  not 
Lille  and  Warsaw  but  Paris  and  Moscow;  if  the 
English  army  had  been  defeated  and  was  no 
longer  able  to  resist  the  advance  of  the  Germans ; 
if  a  final  decision  had  been  given  on  the  battle- 
field ;  if  we  were  in  presence  of  a  victory  such  as 
that  of  1866  or  1870;  then  indeed  the  Allies  would 
have  to  consider  the  abandonment  of  all  for  the 
sake  of  which  the  war  was  accepted  by  them  — 
the  liberties  of  Europe,  the  security  of  France, 
and  the  integrity  and  independence  of  Belgium. 

If  we  are  to  understand  the  full  insolence  of 
the  Chancellor's  language  we  must  recollect  that 
the  one  great  question  from  which  the  war 
originated  was  the  refusal  of  Germany  to  allow 

which  included  the  permanent  control  of  Germany  over 
Belgium  answered  to  the  description  which  the  Chancellor 
gives  of  them,  or  whether  Mr.  Asquith  and  Lord  R.  Cecil  are  not 
justified  in  criticising  them  as  "intolerable  and  humiliating." 


g8  THE    ISSUE 

the  other  powers  to  be  consulted  in  a  matter 
which  had  always  been  held  to  be  a  common 
European  concern;  if  the  Allies  were  not  strong 
enough  to  enforce  the  claim  of  Europe  to  be 
heard,  then  for  all  time  it  would  be  determined 
that  there  was  to  be  only  one  voice  heard  in 
Europe.  His  conditions  were  therefore  such  as 
could  naturally  be  suggested  only  after  a  complete 
defeat  of  the  armies  which  left  the  enemy  at  the 
mercy  of  Germany.  But  these  terms  were  pro- 
pounded when  no  such  defeat  had  taken  place. 
He  confounded  a  temporary  strategical  gain  with 
a  decisive  victory,  and  when  the  struggle  was  at 
its  height  presumed  to  use  the  language  of  a  con- 
queror. What  a  prospect  does  this  hold  out  of 
the  fate  of  Europe  were  there  to  be  a  real  and 
decisive  success  for  Germany! 

It  is,  then,  on  this,  and  on  this  alone,  that  the 
claim  made  that  he  is  working  for  peace  is  based. 
For  to  this  his  later  speech  which  was  made 
in  April  adds  nothing,  and  from  it  takes  away 
nothing.  It  is  perhaps  less  explicit,  it  is  perhaps 
more  apologetic  and  less  positive  in  tone,  but  on 
all  that  concerns  the  positive  suggestions  for 
ending  the  war  there  is  nothing.  As  to  Belgium, 
which  is  for  Englishmen  always  the  essential 
thing,  we  have  indeed  the  additional  suggestion 
that  in  any  settlement  Germany  will  have  to 
guard  the  Flemings  in  the  use  of  their  own 
language  from  the  oppression  of  the  Walloons. 
But  how  can  this  be  done  if  the  independence  and 


THE    CHANCELLOR   AND   PEACE    99 

integrity  of  Belgium  are  to  be  restored  ?  And  he 
knows  that  there  is  no  possibility  of  any  discus- 
sion except  on  the  basis  that  the  full  restoration 
of  Belgium  is  the  first  point : 

Gentlemen,  Russia  must  not  again  march  her 
armies  for  a  second  time  to  the  unprotected 
frontier  of  East  and  West  Prussia.  Not  for  a 
second  time  must  she  be  allowed,  by  the  use  of 
French  gold,  to  make  the  land  of  the  Vistula 
a  sally-point  against  unprotected  Germany.  Can 
anyone  believe  that  we  will  surrender  the  lines 
which  we  have  occupied  in  the  West,  in  which 
the  blood  of  our  people  has  flowed,  without 
complete  security  for  our  future  ?  We  will  make 
for  ourselves  real  guarantees  that  Belgium  will 
not  again  become  an  English-French  vassal- 
state,  and  that  she  shall  not  be  built  out  as  a 
military  and  economic  bulwark  against  Germany. 
Here  also  there  is  no  status  quo  ante.  Here  also 
Germany  cannot  surrender  the  Flemish  race, 
which  has  so  long  been  kept  down,  to  Frenchifi- 
cation.  We  must  secure  for  it  a  healthy,  broad 
development,  corresponding  to  its  characteristics 
on  the  basis  of  its  Low  German  (Niederldndisch) 
speech  and  character. 

Germany  is  to  have  real  guarantees.  What  is 
meant  by  a  "  real  guarantee  "  ?  Real  guaran- 
tees —  military,  economic,  and  political.  It  is  not 
to  be  supposed  that  the  Chancellor  would  be 
content  with  the  security  merely  of  a  treaty, 
neither  a  simple  treaty  nor  a  general  treaty,  nor 


ioo  THE    ISSUE 

the  decision  of  a  conference  ratified  by  all  the 
powers  and  enforced  by  formal  guarantees. 
These  are  the  securities  on  which  other  states 
in  the  past  have  from  time  to  time  depended: 
the  security  of  Germany  is  too  precious  to  be 
allowed  to  rest  on  so  frail  and  uncertain  a  basis. 
The  currency  of  treaty  obligations  and  of  paper 
guarantees  has  been  depreciated.  After  all,  it 
might  be  that  the  time  would  come  when  some 
other  nation  might  find  itself  in  a  state  of  neces- 
sity; it  might  be  remembered  that  treaties  have 
only  a  conditional  application,  that  they  dis- 
appear with  changed  circumstances,  and  so  Ger- 
many must  have  her  real  guarantees. 

What  does  he  mean  by  this?  The  words  can 
have  no  meaning,  and,  in  fact,  obviously  are 
intended  to  have  no  meaning  except  that  Belgium 
and  Poland  are  to  be  brought  under  the  political 
system  of  Germany,  to  be  associated  with  the 
German  commercial  system  and  controlled  by 
the  German  army.  The  formula  as  to  Belgium 
deserves  attention;  it  is  one  of  those  unsurpass- 
able suggestions  in  which  the  German  Chancellor 
is  supreme.  They  cannot  allow  that  Belgium 
shall  be  a  place  from  which  France  and  England 
can  begin  their  march  against  them.  Belgium 
must  no  longer  be  a  sally-port  threatening  the 
German  Empire.  Well,  one  would  have  thought 
that  experience  showed  that  Belgian  territory 
was  the  base  of  operations,  not  against  Germany, 
but  against  France.  Who  else  in  the  world 


THE  CHANCELLOR  AND  PEACE     101 

could,  at  less  than  a  week's  notice,  have  thrown 
a  million  soldiers  into  Belgium  under  the  plea  of 
necessity,  used  Belgian  territory  as  the  base  of 
operations  for  marching  straight  upon  Paris,  and 
then,  with  smug  self-satisfaction,  come  before  the 
public  assembly  of  his  own  countrymen,  and 
speaking,  not  only  to  them  but  to  the  whole  of 
Europe,  have  seriously  laid  down  the  proposition 
that  in  future  Belgium  must  not  be  used  by  France 
as  the  base  of  operations  against  Germany? 

The  Chancellor  cannot  tell  us  in  what  these 
guarantees  are  to  consist.  We  are  really  not 
curious.  The  details  do  not  matter.  It  does  not 
matter  in  the  least  whether  Belgium  is  annexed 
to  the  Empire  or  to  Prussia  or  left  in  the  enjoy- 
ment of  its  own  dynasty  and  nominal  and  legal 
autonomy.  It  did  not  matter  whether  Saxony 
was  annexed  in  1866,  as  was  Hanover,  or  allowed 
to  remain  a  separate  kingdom.  It  matters  noth- 
ing whether  a  future  King  of  Belgium  enjoys 
the  privilege  of  the  Duke  of  Mecklenburg,  or 
whether  the  Kingdom  of  Poland  is  to  take  its 
place  among  the  seventeen  territories  over  which 
the  House  of  Hapsburg  rules,  or  to  be  partitioned 
between  Hapsburg  and  Hohenzollern.  That 
which  does  matter  is  that  these  nations  shall  not 
come  into  the  German  system  in  such  a  way  that 
their  industry  goes  to  swell  the  resources  of  Ber- 
lin, their  armies  fight  by  the  side  of  the  Prussians, 
and  the  development  of  their  institutions  is  as- 
similated to  those  of  Germany. 


102  THE    ISSUE 

His  last  formula  used  in  his  speech  of  June  18, 
1916,  is  the  "geographical  situation  of  the  war 
map."  Schemes  of  peace  could  attain  their  ob- 
ject only  if  carried  on  by  statesmen  of  the  bel- 
ligerent countries  on  the  basis  of  the  military 
situation  as  shown  by  the  war  map.  Well,  the 
war  map  is  a  very  serious  thing,  but  it  is  not  the 
same  as  the  military  situation,  and  peaceful 
though  his  career  has  been,  little  part  though  he 
may  have  taken  in  military  affairs,  he  cannot  be 
so  ignorant  of  the  writings  of  the  soldiers  of  his 
own  country  as  not  to  know  the  difference.  That 
which  tells  in  war  is  not  the  extent  of  territory 
occupied  at  any  moment,  but  the  number  and 
efficiency  of  the  armies1  which  can  be  brought 
into  the  field  on  either  side.  So  long  as  the 
forces  of  the  enemy  are  able  to  keep  the  field 
intact,  so  long  any  territory  occupied  is  only  a 
precarious  possession.  And  of  the  enemies  of 
Germany  there  is  not  one  except  Serbia  which 
is  not  in  the  field  with  an  army,  relatively,  as 
regards  the  German  forces,  as  strong  as  or 
stronger  than  when  the  war  began. 

The  armies  are  still  in  the  field,  but  he  will 
make  a  peace  as  though  they  had  disappeared,  for 
that  is  what  it  comes  to.  Peace  on  the  war  map 
is  another  way  of  saying  what  he  has  said  so 
often  before.  Peace  on  the  assumption  that 
Belgium  and  Poland  and  Serbia  are  not  only 
occupied  but  conquered. 


CHAPTER   IV 
PRINCE    BULOW    ON    PEACE1 

IN  a  former  article  I  discussed  the  attitude  of 
the  present  German  Chancellor  towards  peace, 
and  attempted  to  show  how  little  hope  there 
was  that  from  him  we  could  expect  any  reason- 
able proposals.  Since  then  we  have  had  a  con- 
tribution to  the  same  question  from  one  who  is 
both  a  past,  and  —  may  we  not  add  ?  —  a  possible 
future  Chancellor.  Prince  Biilow  is  undoubtedly 
the  most  distinguished  of  living  German  states- 
men ;  he  is,  above  all,  the  man  in  whom  the  Bis- 
marck tradition  lives,  he  has  held  the  office  of 
Chancellor  longer  than  anyone  since  Bismarck's 
retirement,  and  it  is  not  probable  that  a  man  of 
his  experience  and  ability  will  be  allowed  to  re- 
main in  retirement  at  a  time  when  the  country 
needs  all  that  it  has  of  the  wisest  leadership.  If 
the  time  comes  when  Herr  von  Bethmann-Holl- 
weg  finds,  as  he  easily  may  do,  his  position  un- 
tenable, it  is  Prince  Biilow  who  is  clearly  marked 
out  to  be  his  successor. 

If  doubt  is  felt  in  this  by  anyone,  it  is  certainly 
not  felt  by  Prince  Biilow  himself. 

1  Nineteenth  Century  arid  After,  August,  1916. 


104  THE    ISSUE 

For  Prince  Billow's  suggestions  as  to  the  terms 
of  peace  which  may  properly  be  imposed  by  Ger- 
many when  victorious  we  have  to  turn  to  the 
new  edition  of  his  book,  Imperial  Germany.1 
With  much  that  is  contained  in  this  work  I  am 
not  here  concerned.  Most  of  it  is  occupied  with  a 
review  of  German  history  for  the  last  twenty-five 
years  and  a  defence  of  his  own  policy.  But 
both  in  his  Introduction  and  from  time  to  time 
in  the  course  of  the  new  edition,  he  has  intro- 
duced valuable  suggestions  for  the  future. 

He  is  indeed  in  a  very  favourable  position  for 
doing  so,  more  favourable  than  the  Chancellor 
himself.  He  at  least  is  free  from  the  responsi- 
bility for  the  outbreak  of  the  war ;  he  therefore 
can  approach  the  future  with  a  free  mind. 
Between  him  and  the  countries  at  war  with 
Germany  there  has  been  no  personal  breach. 
There  is  nothing  to  prevent  him  meeting  at  the 
council-table  the  statesmen  of  enemy  countries. 
And  we  may  be  grateful  that  he  has  observed 
throughout  the  book  a  discretion  which  is  now 
too  rare.  He  has  kept  himself  free  from  the 
passion,  the  anger,  the  invective  that  are  too 
common  in  all  that  comes  to  us  from  across  the 
water.  There  is  none  of  the  heady  indignation, 
the  passionate  invectives,  the  crude  denunciation 
of  English  hypocrisy  and  English  brutality  to 
which  we  are  now  so  accustomed.  There  is 

1  Imperial  Germany.  New  and  revised  edition.  Cassell  & 
Co.,  Ltd.,  1916. 


PRINCE    BULOW    ON    PEACE     105 

criticism  of  the  enemy  countries,  but  criticism 
phrased  in  language  which  even  those  who  differ 
from  it  cannot  for  a  moment  object  to.  We  see, 
indeed,  the  desire  to  restore  relations,  even  in  the 
protest  against  the  expression  used  by  Lord 
Rosebery  of  Judas  kisses.  That  the  expression 
was  a  not  unfair  description  of  German  policy,  as 
expounded  by  the  Prince  himself,  most  English- 
men will  believe.  Here  we  need  only  note  the 
obvious  desire  to  resume  the  cool  business  tone 
which  normally  exists  between  the  ministers  of 
modern  states  even  when  they  are  most  opposed 
to  one  another. 

Indeed  the  note  of  the  book  is  discretion  and 
conciliation.  It  is  the  book  of  a  man  who  will 
make  himself  persona  grata  to  every  country. 
For  Italy  there  is  regret  that  she  so  misunder- 
stood her  own  interest  as  to  leave  her  own  Allies 
and  trust  herself  to  England: 

To  avoid  the  breach  between  Italy  and  Austria 
lay  especially  in  the  interests  of  Italy.  Will 
Italy  get  with  her  new  Allies  what  she  sacri- 
ficed by  giving  up  the  old?  The  greatest  inter- 
ests which  Italy  had,  her  Mediterranean  interests, 
have  always  been  looked  on  by  England  with 
cool  indifference,  by  France  with  traditional 
jealousy,  by  Russia  with  scarcely  concealed 
distaste. 

This  is  the  language  of  a  friend  who,  though 
grieved,  is  still  at  heart  a  friend.  It  is  far  from 


io6  THE    ISSUE 

the  wrath  and  revenge  that  generally  are  heard 
from  Berlin.  It  is  the  language  of  a  man  who 
would  make  the  reconciliation  easy.  It  is  the 
language  of  a  man  who  hopes  to  sow  dissension 
between  the  Allies,  and  who  knows  that  more 
is  to  be  won  by  conciliation  than  by  indignation. 
Even  Japan  is  not  without  the  pale :  "  it  will 
rest  with  her  to  win  once  more  the  confidence  of 
the  victorious  German  Empire."  For  the  neutrals 
there  are  well-chosen  words  of  kindness  and 
sympathy.  Except  for  America :  "  The  anger 
which  is  so  widely  felt  in  Germany  against  the 
American  people  with  whom  they  had  such 
friendly  feelings  is  only  too  natural  and  compre- 
hensible." With  America  reconciliation  will,  it 
seems,  be  difficult. 

The  coolness  and  dispassionate  tone  are, 
however,  not  without  a  purpose.  Prince  Biilow 
has  his  eyes  on  the  future,  and  again  and  again 
we  find  indications  of  the  manner  in  which  he 
hopes  to  treat  the  problems  that  will  arise  after 
the  war.  It  would  not  be  going  too  far  to  inter- 
pret the  book  as  a  bid  for  power,  as  a  suggestion 
that  it  is  in  his  hands  that  the  peace  negotiations 
would  best  be  placed.  There  is  not  a  word  in 
it  that  would  prevent  him  from  taking  up  the 
thread  of  international  problems ;  he  would  come 
to  the  task  unencumbered  by  the  passions  that 
have  been  excited. 

What,  then,  has  this  accomplished  statesman, 
this  amateur  of  Realpolitik,  this  pupil  of  Bis- 


PRINCE    BULOW    ON    PEACE    107 

marck,  to  offer  to  the  world  when  the  time  comes 
that  he  anticipates  and  Germany  is  called  upon  to 
announce  the  terms  on  which  peace  will  be 
restored?  It  is  all  clearly  explained.  England, 
France,  and  Russia,  each  is  dealt  with  in  its 
place.  They  are  set  out  with  admirable  cour- 
tesy; all  is  reasonable,  so  reasonable  that  we 
seem  to  share  his  belief  that  they  are  nothing 
more  than  the  other  countries  might  willingly 
offer  of  themselves.  There  is  nothing  of  revenge, 
no,  waving  of  the  sword,  and  if  the  mailed  fist  is 
there,  and  the  shining  armour,  the  mailed  fist  is 
clothed  in  a  thick  glove  of  satin,  and  the  shining 
armour  is  hardly  seen  beneath  the  court  dress 
of  the  diplomatist. 

We  have  nothing  of  the  crude  arrogance  of 
the  Nationalists,  of  Count  Reventlow  and  Herr 
Bassermann  or  the  Crown  Prince  of  Bavaria. 
We  are  spared  the  heavy  denunciations  of  the 
Chancellor  against  the  plans  for  the  annihilation 
of  Germany.  He  does  not  take  as  his  text  the 
uncritical  collection  of  extracts  from  journalists 
and  novelists  which  the  German  Foreign  Office 
seems  to  keep  as  material  for  the  time  when  the 
Chancellor  has  to  make  a  speech.  With  him  all 
is  dispassionate  reasoning;  in  fact,  he  makes  his 
demands  in  such  a  way  that  we  feel  he  expects 
that  they  will  be  assented  to  by  the  enemies  of 
Germany.  But  different  as  the  tone  and  attitude 
are,  there  is  no  difference  in  the  substance. 

What  are  his  proposed  terms?    Let  us  take, 


io8  THE    ISSUE 

first,  England.  From  England  he  demands 
nothing  less  than  that  she  should  accept  the 
"  freedom  of  the  seas  "  and  a  strengthening  of 
the  German  coast-line: 

After  a  war  that  has  been  waged  by  the 
German  people  with  incomparable  heroism,  but 
also  with  terrible  sacrifices,  against  half  the  world, 
we  have  the  right  and  also  the  duty  to  require, 
not  only  our  own  security  and  independence  at 
sea,  but  above  all  a  real  guarantee  for  the  free- 
dom of  the  seas,  for  the  further  completion  of 
our  economic  and  political  tasks  in  the  world. 

Although  after  we  had  trod  the  road  of  world- 
policy,  we  had  often  had  England  as  an  opponent, 
our  relations  to  England,  when  we  had  attained 
the  necessary  strength  at  sea,  could  be  genuinely 
and  without  reserve  friendly.  Just  by  the  build- 
ing of  our  fleet  we  had  removed  the  chief  hin- 
drance to  cooperation  between  us  and  England  on 
the  basis  of  full  equality  and  mutuality,  we  had 
freed  the  road  for  an  understanding  between  the 
two  countries  on  all  domains  of  world-policy. 
The  English  ministers  would  not  recognise  this, 
they  did  not  wish  for  an  understanding,  and  did 
not  desire  a  reasonable  cooperation.  Therefore 
they  cannot  be  surprised  if,  in  view  of  the  un- 
favourable nature  of  our  coast  for  security  and 
independence,  we  demand  from  England  serious 
and  real  guarantees. 

Well,  England  would  not  be  surprised  at  any- 
thing that  Germany  demanded,  but  we  should 


PRINCE    BULOW    ON   PEACE    109 

like  to  see  translated  into  the  prosaic  language 
of  a  diplomatic  instrument  these  suggestions. 
German  independence  at  sea  can  in  this  connex- 
ion mean  nothing  less  than  a  German  superiority 
to  England  in  naval  strength;  the  insecurity  of 
the  German  coast,  whatever  that  may  mean  (it 
would  have  appeared  that  no  country  has  a  coast 
which  by  its  geographical  nature  is  so  secure 
from  attack  as  that  of  Germany),  can  only  be 
remedied  by  the  extension  of  German  naval  power 
over  other  parts  of  the  coasts  of  the  North  Sea. 

So  it  all  comes  to  this :  Germany  was  to  build 
a  fleet  so  strong  that  it  would  be  a  danger  to 
England,  and  during  the  dangerous  period  of 
transition  England  was  to  be  kept  quiet  by  clever 
diplomacy.  Then,  when  the  fleet  was  built, 
England  was  to  recognise  that,  as  Germany  was 
so  strong  that  her  enmity  would  be  dangerous, 
she  must  enter  into  an  alliance  with  Germany. 
As  she  did  not  do  that,  and  a  war  has  ensued  in 
which  Germany  has,  as  will  happen  in  a  war, 
incurred  severe  losses,  there  is  nothing  for  it  but 
for  England  to  acquiesce  in  German  superiority, 
with  all  this  means  of  danger  to  English  safety. 

The  prospect  held  out  to  France  is  similar. 
France  had  always  refused  to  acquiesce  in  the 
loss  of  Alsace-Lorraine.  "  There  was  no  under- 
standing of  the  fact  that  what  seemed  to  them 
the  brutal  harshness  of  the  conqueror  was  a 
national  necessity  for  us  Germans."  Of  course 
it  was  their  duty  to  see  that  what  Germany 


no  THE    ISSUE 

thought  was  a  national  necessity  for  herself  must 
therefore  be  accepted  as  the  only  right  and  proper 
solution  by  the  French.  They  have  not  done 
this  voluntarily,  therefore  they  must  be  made 
to  do  so. 

Perhaps  the  French  people  will  in  the  course 
of  time  adapt  themselves  to  the  decisions  of  the 
Peace  of  Frankfort  when  they  see  that  they  are 
unalterable,  and  especially  if  we  succeed  in  con- 
firming our  strategic  position  as  against  France, 
which  has  always  remained  an  unfavourable  one. 

It  is  all  so  simple  and  reasonable.  Germany 
took  Alsace  and  Lorraine;  they  were  wanted  by 
her,  the  nation  demanded  them;  on  this  there 
is  nothing  more  to  say.  In  order  to  secure  the 
booty,  Metz  was  taken  purely  for  strategic 
reasons.  It  was  taken,  as  Bismarck  said,  because 
Moltke  told  him  that  in  a  war  it  would  be  worth 
100,000  men.  The  French  were,  after  all,  not 
convinced.  They  are  an  emotional  and  idealistic 
race,  they  do  not  understand  Realpolitik;  it  is  all 
very  melancholy,  but  there  is  nothing  to  be  done 
but  to  apply  the  same  remedy  in  a  stronger  form. 
The  frontier  must  be  again  altered,  the  weakness 
of  France  must  be  confirmed ;  they  must  give  up 
their  dreams.  What  is  to  be  taken  we  do  not 
know.  Is  it  only  Belfort,  or  is  Nancy  to  be 
added?  That  matters  little.  It  will  be  enough 
to  show  the  French  their  proper  place  in  the 
world  —  and  then  things  will  go  smoothly. 


PRINCE   BULOW    ON    PEACE    in 

It  is  precisely  the  solution  that  every  other 
German  offers  us.  Wherever  the  experience  of 
the  war  has  shown  that  there  is  any  weakness  in 
the  German  strategic  position,  there  this  must 
be  remedied.  England  at  sea  has  advantages 
that  Germany  has  not;  they  must  be  removed. 
France  is  indeed  weaker  than  Germany,  but  the 
difference  is  not  sufficiently  marked;  it  must  be 
made  clearer. 

Could  we  have  clearer  evidence  than  this  that 
no  satisfactory  conclusion  to  the  war  can  be  given 
until  it  has  been  clearly  shown  that  the  Peace  of 
Frankfort,  a  peace  enforced  on  France  purely 
by  the  power  of  the  sword,  is  not  unalterable? 
But  there  is  another  passage  which  shows  in  an 
even  more  remarkable  manner  the  attitude  of 
Prince  Biilow,  a  passage  which  clearly  indicates 
that  on  the  great  question  of  annexation  or  no 
annexation,  he  is  to  be  found  on  the  side  of  the 
extreme  German  annexationists.  I  have  dealt 
at  length  with  the  demands  of  the  six  indus- 
trial associations;  their  manifesto  has  be- 
come a  sort  of  confession  of  faith  which  divides 
Germany,  and  it  has  been  shown  that  the 
Chancellor  has  carefully  refrained  from  express- 
ing his  approval  of  their  demands.  But  Prince 
Biilow  is  to  be  found  among  those  who  have 
subscribed  to  their  doctrines.  He  has,  in  fact, 
gone  out  of  his  way,  quite  unnecessarily  for  the 
purpose  of  his  argument,  to  express  his  general 
approval  of  their  action : 


ii2  THE    ISSUE 

Turning  to  the  international  teaching  of  the 
world  war  and  to  the  future  position  of  the 
German  Empire  in  the  world,  our  six  great 
industrial  associations  have  joined  together  for 
a  common  manifestation  of  united  and  deter- 
mined patriotic  purpose,  and  have  dealt  with 
that  question  which  is  of  the  greatest  importance 
for  Germany's  present  and  future,  the  question 
of  the  position  of  Germany  as  it  emerges  from 
the  war  in  Europe  and  in  the  world,  both  in 
regard  to  political  and  industrial  power.  This 
constitutes  a  serious  warning  to  foreign  coun- 
tries who  reckon  on  the  old  party  and  industrial 
discords  in  Germany. 

What  this  appears  to  mean  is  that  their 
manifesto  is  to  be  a  point  of  unity  for  all  parties 
and  all  classes  —  a  suggestion  which  is  not  indeed 
likely  to  reconcile  foreign  countries  with  the  aims 
of  united  Germany. 

So  much  for  France;  but  Russia,  too,  must 
be  weakened.  Here,  again,  there  is  a  right  and 
a  duty.  It  is  always  the  duty  of  Germany  to 
weaken  her  neighbours. 

There  was  perhaps  no  country  that  Russia 
so  seldom  found  in  her  way  as  Germany.  That 
has  naturally  altered  since  an  enormous  war  has 
broken  out  between  us  and  Russia. 

We  might  have  added  that  it  had  been  altered 
since  Germany  embarked  on  an  active  policy 
in  the  Balkans  which  was  in  open  opposition  to 


PRINCE   BULOW   ON    PEACE    113 

that  of  Russia.  We  might  have  pointed  out  that 
it  was  Prince  Bulow  himself  who  in  1909  chal- 
lenged Russia  in  the  Balkans. 

We  have  now  the  right  and  the  duty  to  de- 
mand a  real  guarantee  that  East  Prussia,  the 
province  that  in  the  course  of  centuries  has  suf- 
fered more  than  any  other  from  foreign  inva- 
sions, shall  not  again  be  exposed  to  barbarous 
devastation.  King  Ludwig  III  spoke  from  the 
heart  of  the  Bavarian  and  German  people  when 
he  said  that  we  require  a  peace  which  will  secure 
us  rest  for  many  decades.  Such  enormous  sacri- 
fices must  not  be  made  in  vain.  We  require  in 
the  East  a  greatly  increased  and  strengthened 
security,  which  in  the  nature  of  things  can  only 
consist  in  a  correction  of  our  unfavourable  east- 
ern frontier,  a  correction  which  protects  us  from 
further  invasions. 

It  is  the  old  story:  Germany  is  to  be  secured 
from  invasion  on  every  side.  Whatever  wars 
take  place  in  the  future,  this  at  least  shall  be 
secured  —  that  they  shall  not  be  fought  on  the 
soil  of  Germany.  This  will  be  a  holy  land.  When 
the  new  frontiers  have  been  mapped  out,  then  all 
will  be  well,  for  any  future  war  will  be  fought  on 
foreign  soil. 

The  eastern  frontier  is  of  course  the  same  thing 
as  the  Polish  question.  On  this  Prince  Billow 
is  a  special  expert.  He  had  studied  it  in  the 
school  of  Bismarck,  and  on  it  he  speaks  at  greater 


ii4  THE    ISSUE 

length  and  in  more  detail  than  on  most  of  these 
questions.  One  thing  that  emerges  is  that  Poland 
is  to  be  sacrificed.  He  has  no  solution  but  the 
old  one  —  the  continued  partition  of  Poland,  and 
the  continued  subjection  of  those  Poles  who  fall 
to  the  share  of  Prussia  to  that  process  of  German- 
isation  with  which  his  administration  was  iden- 
tified. He  reprints  the  old  chapter  on  the 
problem  of  the  eastern  frontier,  and  asserts  with 
full  conviction  that  no  course  is  possible  except 
that  of  defending  Germanism  by  expropriating 
Polish  landowners  and  discouraging  the  use  of 
the  Polish  language.  This  is  a  part  of  the 
German  mission  of  Kultur.  It  is  again  "  a 
national  duty  of  the  German  people  to  itself." 

The  struggle  for  the  soil,  which  is  in  its  es- 
'sence  the  struggle  for  a  sufficient  stiffening  of 
the  East  with  German  men,  will  always  be  the 
Alpha  and  Omega  of  our  national  German  policy 
in  the  East.  The  struggle  for  German  Kultur 
and  culture,  above  all  for  the  German  language, 
must  accompany  it.  With  our  plantation  policy 
we  fight  for  Germanism  in  the  East,  with  our 
school  policy  in  truth  we  fight  for  our  Poles, 
whom  we  wish  to  bring  nearer  to  German  intel- 
lectual life. 

Whatever  may  happen  across  the  border  the 
Prussian  Poles  are  to  remain  Prussian  and  to  be 
Germanised.  They  are  to  have  no  part  in  the 
fortunes  of  their  fellow  countrymen.  As  he  says 


PRINCE    BULOW    ON    PEACE     115 

again  and  again,  "  Prussia  cannot  allow  Posen 
to  become  a  second  Galicia." 

The  policy  of  the  eastern  frontier  is  at  bottom 
as  simple  as  possible.  Its  solution  is  less  a  ques- 
tion of  political  wisdom  than  one  of  political 
courage. 

In  the  Polish  provinces  of  Prussia  there  is, 
then,  to  be  no  change.  There  will  be  added  to 
them  what  is  necessary  to  guard  East  Prussia 
against  invasion.  What  is  to  happen  to  the 
rest  of  Poland?  It  is  a  question  that  does  not 
interest  him.  He  recognises  that  the  result  of 
the  war  might  be  the  reconstruction  of  an  inde- 
pendent or  autonomous  Poland,  but  he  does  not 
desire  it.  He  does  not  desire  it  for  the  very 
sufficient  reason  that  "  it  is  a  matter  for  con- 
sideration whether  the  separation  of  Congress 
Poland  would  mean  a  weakening  of  Russia,"  but 
it  certainly  would  be  a  danger  to  Prussia. 

Were  the  world  war  to  fulfil  the  dream  of  the 
Poles,  were  it  to  be  that  we  really  carried  out  for 
the  Poles  what  they  gained  for  a  short  time  from 
our  most  dangerous  enemy,  Napoleon  the  First; 
and  were,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  after  the 
Great  King  and  the  First  Partition,  an  inde- 
pendent or  autonomous  Poland  to  be  created,  then 
the  indissoluble  connexion  between  the  Prussian 
monarchy  and  the  eastern  provinces  must  be  se- 
cured with  all  the  more  resolution,  the  future 
of  Germanism  in  the  mixed  districts  be  guarded 


u6  THE    ISSUE 

all  the  more  carefully  and  conscientiously.  What 
the  German  sword  has  won  for  the  Poles  by 
German  power  and  German  blood  must  not,  as 
a  result,  bring  injury  to  the  Prussian  State  and 
to  Germanism. 

He  does  not  wish  for  a  restoration  of  Poland 
in  any  form,  and  he  quotes  with  approval  a 
saying  of  Bismarck  when  discussing  the  possi- 
bility of  a  war  with  Russia: 

And  what  should  we  do  if  we  had  defeated 
Russia?  Restore  Poland?  Then  in  twenty 
years  we  could  have  a  new  alliance  between  the 
three  Empires  in  order  to  finish  with  a  fourth 
partition  of  Poland.  But  this  amusement  is  not 
worth  a  great  war. 

The  Polish  question  is  one  which  is  necessarily 
outside  the  special  interests  of  England ;  it  is  one 
in  which  she  never  has  been,  and  never  will  be, 
able  to  exercise  a  decisive  influence.  On  the  one 
occasion  when  she  attempted  to  interfere  she  did 
more  harm  than  good.  It  has,  however,  been 
the  hope  of  every  Englishman  that,  whatever 
might  be  the  result  of  the  war,  it  would  not  fail 
to  do  much  towards  restoring  to  the  Poles  their 
nationality.  Here  at  least  it  seemed  that  it 
could  not  be  but  that  something  would  be 
achieved  towards  settling  the  most  difficult  of 
European  problems. 

It  is  clear  that  from  Prince  Biilow  no  help  will 
be  found.  Russia  must  indeed  be  weakened. 


PRINCE    BULOW    ON   PEACE    117 

She  must  share  the  fate  of  France  and  England ; 
but  it  is  elsewhere  that  this  must  be  done,  not 
in  Poland  but  in  the  Ukraine: 

Naturally  also  we  cannot  wish  for  a  recupera- 
tion of  the  Russian  Empire.  We  shall  have  to 
count  on  this,  however,  in  view  of  the  constant 
increase  of  the  Russian  population,  and  the  na- 
tional and  religious  homogeneity  of  the  mass  of 
the  Russian  people,  unless  Russia  falls  to  pieces 
politically  or  socially,  or  loses  the  Ukraine,  its 
corn  store,  and  the  basis  of  its  industry. 

The  principle  put  forward  —  is  it  not  a  danger- 
ous one?  If  Germany  were  after  all  not  victori- 
ous, cannot  we  imagine,  say,  a  French  statesman 
quoting  these  words  to  their  author  at  a  peace 
congress?  Could  we  not  see  him  pointing  out 
that  France  could  not  wish  the  recuperation  of 
Germany,  showing  how  in  view  of  the  yearly 
increase  of  the  population  and  the  homogeneity 
of  the  people  this  must  inevitably  come  about, 
and  that  therefore,  unless  Germany  fell  to  pieces, 
unless  the  Empire  were  dissolved,  or  a  social 
revolution  broke  out,  it  would  really  be  necessary 
to  take  away  those  Western  provinces  which 
were  the  basis  of  its  industrial  prosperity?  For, 
after  all,  the  sacrifices  of  the  war  have  not  been 
confined  to  Germany.  It  is  not  German  soldiers 
alone  that  have  fallen.  There  are  widows  and 
orphans  in  France  too.  It  shows  less  than  his 
usual  foresight,  but  it  also  shows  in  its  barren 


n8  THE    ISSUE 

nakedness  the  crude  national  egoism  on  which, 
despite  the  appearance  of  reason,  is  built  up  his 
whole  political  thought.  In  him,  as  in  every 
German,  there  is  no  conception  of  any  principle 
governing  the  relations  between  states  beyond 
that  of  the  eternal  struggle  —  which,  whether  by 
war  or  diplomacy,  shall  do  most  injury  to  the 
other. 

And  this  it  is  which  will  be  the  final  verdict  on 
him  and  his  policy.  It  is  not  to  him  that  we  can 
look  as  to  the  deus  ex  machina  who  will  rescue 
Europe  from  her  present  distress.  This  able 
statesman,  this  skilled  and  experienced  diplo- 
matist, this  accomplished  man  of  the  world,  what 
has  he  to  offer  us?  There  is  no  trick  of  the 
trade  that  he  does  not  know;  compared  with 
him  the  Chancellor  is,  in  fact,  an  inexperienced 
bungler.  He  has  learnt  to  look  at  the  States 
of  Europe  as  pawns  to  be  moved  by  the  master 
hand,  and  he  is  never  tired  of  explaining  the 
admirable  game  that  he  played  when  it  was  for 
him  to  play.  As  it  seemed  to  him,  he  knew, 
better  than  they  themselves  did,  the  true  interests 
of  every  country  in  Europe;  he  could  tell  what 
was  the  right  move  for  England,  and  how  Italy 
should  play.  When  the  German  fleet  had  been 
built,  then  of  course  there  was  nothing  for 
England  to  do  but  to  come  into  an  alliance  with 
a  country  which  was  now  so  strong  that  it  could 
not  be  her  interest  to  be  at  enmity  with  it. 
And  so  the  friendship  of  Germany  was  offered  to 


PRINCE   BULOW   ON   PEACE    119 

England.  Italy  he  knew  as  a  second  home,  and 
he  could  see  that  the  interest  of  Italy  was  to 
remain  in  the  Triple  Alliance;  she  would  get 
more  from  it  than  from  the  other  side. 

And  then  the  whole  house  of  cards  which  had 
been  built  up  with  such  care  collapsed.  England 
was  offered  the  friendship  of  Germany ;  the  two 
countries  would  indeed  have  had  the  world  at 
their  feet.  But  the  friendship  was  offered  at  a 
price,  the  price  of  leaving  those  with  whom  we 
had  been  on  the  closest  terms  of  friendship,  and 
it  was  friendship  with  a  country  which  openly 
boasted  that  they  had  beguiled  us.  It  was  an 
offer  that  required  close  scrutinising,  and  the 
answer  was  made :  "  We  do  not  wish  for  new 
friendships  at  the  price  of  sacrificing  our  old 
friends."  One  honest  word  dispelled  all  the  mists 
and  baffling  clouds  of  poison  gas.  And  Italy 
answered :  "  Yes,  we  should  no  doubt  get  much 
from  you;  we  should  get  it  at  once  and  without 
a  struggle;  but  by  doing  so  we  should  for  all 
time  sacrifice  our  independence  and  our  power 
of  self-determination;  we  should  be  a  mere 
vassal  State  of  Germany.  Better  than  this  a 
contest,  for  even  if  we  are  defeated  in  it  we  shall 
have  saved  our  honour." 

Prince  Biilow  is  indeed  like  the  magician  in  the 
old  story  who  found  that  unwittingly  he  had 
raised  up  daemonic  forces  which  he  was  unable  to 
control.  In  order  to  get  the  money  to  build  his 
fleet  he  had  to  give  the  reins  to  the  German  Navy 


120  THE    ISSUE 

League,  who  would  not  put  to  their  open  hopes 
and  ambitions  the  limits  that  were  necessary  if 
England  were  to  be  properly  beguiled ;  and  while 
he  was  explaining  that,  after  all,  the  strong 
German  fleet  would  be  all  to  the  good  of  England 
and  would  be  the  proper  basis  for  friendly  rela- 
tions in  the  future,  they  with  a  foolish  honesty 
insisted  that  it  should  be  used  to  wrest  from 
England  the  supremacy  of  the  seas.  To  Serbia 
and  Poland  and  Rumania  he  was  as  blind  as 
was  Metternich  to  the  aspirations  of  Italy  and 
Germany;  he  did  not  see  that  these  national 
forces  could  not  for  all  time  be  kept  down  by 
acute  diplomacy  and  bargaining,  nor  even  kept 
under  by  the  soldier  and  the  policeman. 

And  for  Europe  as  a  whole  he  has  no  message. 
So  blinded  is  he  by  his  admiration  for  Bismarck 
that  he  does  not  see  how  far  the  world  has 
moved ;  he  does  not  understand  that  that  which 
was  right  and  necessary  in  order  to  build  up  the 
German  State,  and  to  secure  it  during  the  first 
years  of  its  existence,  now  belongs  to  the  past. 
There  has  never  entered  into  his  mind  a  Europe 
different  from  that  of  the  past.  All  he  sees  is  a 
continuance  of  the  old  game  of  the  rival  Powers 
intriguing  for  place  and  power,  with  this  differ- 
ence, that  in  the  future  Germany  is  always  to 
hold  all  the  trumps.  Even  the  German  scheme 
of  a  Mitteleuropa,  which  at  least  is  a  real  attempt 
at  construction,  he  passes  over  without  a  word. 
Still  less  has  it  occurred  to  him  that  there  is 


PRINCE    BULOW    ON    PEACE     121 

possible  a  Europe  in  which,  when  each  state  has 
attained  those  frontiers  which  are  necessary  for 
the  completeness  of  its  national  existence,  the 
period  of  war  and  rivalry  which  belonged  to  the 
stage  of  formation  may  be  over;  that  a  peace 
congress  should  leave  a  state  of  things  in  which 
the  ceaseless  struggle  for  territory  which  has  been 
the  cause  of  so  many  wars  should  cease,  at  least 
in  the  West,  and  that  the  apportionment  of  terri- 
tory and  the  guarantee  for  its  continuance  should 
not  depend  on  the  mere  strength  of  the  sword 
but  on  the  verdict  of  the  united  Continent. 


CHAPTER  V 
CENTRAL  EUROPE1 

I 

THOSE  who  have  studied  the  history  of  German 
political  thought  cannot  fail  to  observe  the  in- 
genuity with  which  at  each  stage  in  the  progress 
of  the  Prussian  State  there  have  been  found  his- 
torians and  philosophers  to  proclaim  the  theory 
and  principle  by  which  it  is  justified.  The  ag- 
gression of  the  Government  and  the  tyranny  of 
war  and  the  cruelty  of  organisation  have  to  be 
properly  decked  out  that  they  may  take  their 
place  in  high  intellectual  society.  For  the  satis- 
faction of  their  own  spirit  they  require  a  formula. 
The  Prussian  Government  has  never  wanted 
priests  and  prophets.  There  was  a  time  when 
we  were  told  that  the  state  was  the  end  in  itself, 
and  the  pupils  of  Hegel  taught  that  its  existence 
was  its  own  justification.  A  generation  passed, 
and  the  Prussian  Government,  which  in  1815 
had  been  the  strongest  enemy  of  the  national 
idea,  clothed  itself  in  the  fashionable  doctrine  of 
the  time,  and  the  conquest  of  Germany  disguised 
itself  as  the  unity  of  the  German  Nation. 

1  Westminster  Gazette,  May  8,  1916. 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  123 

The  idea  of  nationality  has  been  useful,  and 
for  forty  years  it  has  been  proclaimed  by  the  his- 
torian apologists  of  the  Empire.  But  the  idea  of 
nationality  will  do  no  more.  It  imposes  limits. 
It  has  been  stretched  to  its  uttermost  by  the 
Pan-Germans,  but  it  has  been  stretched  beyond 
its  capacity.  It  involves  a  logical  contradiction. 
The  conception  of  nationality  requires  reciproc- 
ity. A  state  which  is  based  on  this  idea  cannot 
refuse  to  recognise  the  nationality  of  other  states 
as  equally  justified.  For  a  few  weeks  in  the 
spring  of  1848  this  was  recognised,  and  there 
was  a  time  when  the  German  patriots  held  out  a 
hand  of  sympathy  to  the  Poles  and  Italians  and 
Hungarians.  It  was  not  for  long,  for  the  logic 
of  facts  showed  that  the  recognition  of  other 
nationalities  must  lead  to  a  diminution  of  Ger- 
man ascendancy.  The  achievements  of  1866  and 
1870  for  a  time  freed  the  German  Nation  from 
the  necessity  of  thinking.  They  had  gained 
sufficient  for  the  moment;  the  absorption  and 
incorporation  of  what  had  been  achieved  sufficed 
for  a  generation;  the  catchword  of  nationality, 
of  the  National-Staat,  would  suffice.  But  the 
success  which  they  have  gained  in  this  war  opens 
out  further  ambitions.  German  Kultur  is  no 
longer  merely  the'  expression  of  the  full  con- 
sciousness of  German  nationality.  It  is  a  sacred 
positive  truth,  world-wide  in  its  application,  to 
which  other  less  favoured  nations  have  to  bow. 
But  the  imposing  of  German  Kultur  upon  them 


i24  THE    ISSUE 

is  obviously  a  diminution  of  their  own  national 
self-consciousness.  The  work  cannot  be  carried 
out  under  this  category.  And  so  we  find  that 
the  most  thoughtful  of  modern  Germans  tell  us 
that  nationality  has  played  its  part,  and  that  now 
its  exaggerations  must  be  curbed,  for  the  prin- 
ciple of  nationality  means  the  dissolution  of  the 
Austrian  Empire,  and  the  greater  Germany  of 
the  future  depends  for  its  security  on  an  alliance 
with  an  Austria  stronger  and  greater  than  be- 
fore ;  "  the  national  democratic  fever  must  be 
subdued  " ;  "  it  is  a  destructive  element."  To 
subdue  it  would  be  an  enormous  gain  in  peace 
and  security.  It  must  give  way  to  the  idea  of 
German  freedom. 

It  is  the  exposition  of  this  new  attitude  that 
gives  its  interest  to  Herr  Naumann's  book,  Mit- 
teleuropa,1  one  of  the  most  important  contri- 
butions to  political  thought  that  has  appeared 
since  the  war  began.  Herr  Naumann,  who  has 
long  been  known  as  a  prominent  exponent  of 
Christian  Socialism,  is  no  mere  chauvinistic  rhet- 
orician; he  takes  a  place  apart  from  the  mob 
of  pamphleteers  who  repeat  with  vacant  uniform- 
ity the  virtues  of  Germany  and  the  crimes  of 
England.  He  does  not  merely  require  the  world 
to  accept  German  Kultur,  he  explains  to  us  what 
it  is,  and  he  paints  in  firm  outline  the  new  Eu- 

1  Mittdeuropa,  von  Friedrich  Naumann.  Berlin,  1915: 
Druck  und  Verlag  von  Georg  Reimer.  There  is  now  an 
English  translation,  published  by  P.  S.  King  &  Co. 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  125 

rope  —  for,  of  course,  like  the  Chancellor,  he 
wants  a  new  Europe  —  which  it  is  to  produce. 
For  it  is  on  German  Kultur  and  not  on  German 
nationality  that  the  new  world  is  to  be  built  up. 

This  is  not  the  place  for  a  full  examination  of 
the  principles  of  Naumann's  book.  Those  who 
are  interested  in  these  things  will  find  much  that 
is  stimulating  in  his  discussion  as  to  the  essential 
characteristics  of  German  culture.  On  the  Con- 
tinent discussion  has  been  chiefly  confined  to 
the  economic  questions  involved,  and  there  has 
been  a  serious  consideration  of  the  practical 
difficulties  in  bringing  about  any  permanent  com- 
mercial union,  first  between  Austria  and  Hun- 
gary and  then  between  the  Dual  Monarchy  and 
Germany.  This  concentration  on  one  element 
of  the  problem  is  misleading  and  dangerous.  It 
obscures  what  is  even  more  important  —  the 
political  questions  at  stake.  For  though  the  new 
state  which  he  desires  is  to  be  erected  on  an  in- 
dustrial basis,  it  is  to  be  something  much  broader 
in  its  effects  than  this,  and  it  implies  nothing  less 
than  a  permanent  transfiguration  of  the  whole  of 
Europe. 

That  which  at  this  moment  alone  is  important 
are  the  practical  results  which  he  advocates.  In 
them,  though  his  formula  is  different,  there  is 
nothing  to  choose  between  him  and  the  craziest 
of  the  Germano-maniacs  or  the  headstrong  fire- 
eaters  of  the  Kreuz-Zeitung  and  the  Hamburger 
Nachrichten.  What  he  wants  and  what  he  hopes 


126  THE    ISSUE 

to  attain  is  a  Europe  which  would  be  completely 
subject  to  Germany,  and  his  whole  book  is  an 
explanation  as  to  how  this  is  to  be  brought  about. 
It  matters  nothing  that  it  is  to  be  done  in  the 
name  of  organisation  rather  than  nationalism, 
that  the  new  state  is  to  be  called  Central  Europe 
and  not  Germany,  that  he  talks  more  of  bankers 
than  of  armies;  the  essential  thing  is  that  he 
postulates  a  new  Europe,  a  new  Europe  that  is 
to  be  governed  from  Berlin.  But  the  Allies  do 
not  intend  to  have  this  new  Europe ;  they  prefer 
the  old. 

What  is  the  new  Europe  to  be?  The  kernel  is 
a  permanent  union  between  Germany  and  Aus- 
tria-Hungary, a  union  commercial,  political,  and 
military.  It  is  not  to  be  a  mere  treaty  arrange- 
ment, but  an  organised  federal  union  with  com- 
mon institutions.  There  is  to  be  a  common 
army,  a  customs  union,  and  common  commercial 
policy,  and,  what  is  even  more  important,  com- 
mon industrial  legislation.  This  is  more  impor- 
tant; for  it  means  common  legislation  on  the 
details  of  life  which  will  affect  the  habits  of  each 
individual.  The  whole  industrial  organisation  of 
the  German  Empire,  improved  and  adapted 
where  necessary,  will  be  applied  to  all  the  con- 
stituent states.  The  committees  and  public  offices 
by  which  this  will  be  done  will  therefore  have  a 
control  over  the  economic  conditions  which  will 
put  each  individual  in  complete  subjection  to 
them. 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  127 

In  explaining  his  point  of  view,  Naumann  does 
not  scruple  completely  to  throw  over  the  whole 
doctrine  of  German  nationalism,  and  to  pour 
contempt  on  the  suggestion  that  the  war  was 
one  merely  for  the  defence  of  the  German  Na- 
tion. It  is,  he  tells  us,  "  a  mistake  to  speak  of 
this  war  as  a  decisive  struggle  between  Germans 
and  Slavs."  They  have  to  give  up  singing, 
"  Deutschland,  Deutschland  iiber  Alles."  They 
have  to  remember  that  they  have  non-Germanic 
allies.  It  is  no  good  to  continue  laying  stress  on 
the  national  idea.  "  The  highest  temperature  of 
the  struggles  of  nationalities  is  past."  "  After 
the  war  there  will  have  to  be  a  great  revision  of 
methods,  with  relaxation  of  the  Germanising 
force."  "  The  Germans  are  bad  Germanisers." 
"  How  pleasing  it  would  be  for  us  to  make  the 
Czechs  into  Germans,  if  we  could ;  but  it  is  simply 
impossible,"  and  so  we  must  talk  less  of  nation- 
ality. These  matters  must  be  put  into  the  back- 
ground; they  are  of  secondary  importance. 
They  must  give  way  to  the  state-forming  prin- 
ciple of  the  future,  and  that  is  organisation. 

But  let  us  not  be  deceived :  all  this  might  lead 
us  to  think  that  this  European  State  of  the 
future  was  to  be  an  equal  federation  of  equal 
races.  No  one  who  knows  his  Germany  would 
believe  that  for  a  moment.  When  we  say  that 
nationality  is  no  longer  the  creative  force  of  the 
future,  we  only  mean  that  it  is  not  to  be  the 
creative  force  for  the  Poles  and  the  Hungarians 


128  THE    ISSUE 

and  the  Czechs  and  the  Croatians.  They  have 
to  recognise  that  these  ideas  belong  to  the  past 
in  order  that  they  may  be  brought  into  the  great 
mid-European  State;  but  here  it  comes  out 
nakedly  and  boldly:  " Mitteleuropa  will  in  its 
kernel  be  German;  it  will,  of  course,  use  the 
German  language  as  the  medium  of  communica- 
tion." It  is  true  there  is  to  be  concession  to  the 
languages  of  all  races  which  have  their  part  in 
it,  but  these  would  be  subordinate  and  local 
languages;  they  would  be  as  Welsh  or  Gaelic 
is  with  us,  and  will  accept,  with  proper  humil- 
ity, their  subordinate  position  as  local  dialects  in 
the  great  state,  which  will  be,  in  its  heart  and 
essence,  German.  On  the  continent  of  Europe, 
from  Constantinople  to  Antwerp,  and  from  Riga 
to  Trieste,  there  would  be  one  great  organisation, 
one  army,  one  financial  and  commercial  system, 
and  this  will  be  German. 

An  admirable  picture,  an  enticing  future,  but 
will  these  small,  inferior,  and  secondary  races 
accept  it?  Will  the  Poles  and  the  Hungarians 
acquiesce  in  a  future  which  condemns  them  in- 
evitably to  be  absorbed  into  the  great  Germany 
of  the  future,  in  which  their  own  language,  their 
own  traditions,  and  their  own  culture  will  be 
irrevocably  condemned  to  a  gradual  and  passion- 
less extinction  ?  They  will  remain  with  the  peas- 
ant costume  and  quaint  local  customs,  to  be 
visited  by  the  antiquarians  of  the  future  who 
wish  in  the  dead  monotony  of  this  commercial 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  129 

state  to  find  the  dying  remnants  of  the  old  days 
in  which  there  still  were  separate  races  in  Europe. 
Are  they  willing  to  look  forward  to  a  future  in 
which  they  will  be  but  as  the  few  Wendish  peas- 
ants who  still  maintain  their  language  among 
the  marshes  and  forests  of  the  Spreewald,  and 
provide  wet  nurses  for  the  children  of  their 
German  masters? 

What  are  to  be  the  limits  of  the  new  state  he 
does  not  tell  us.  He  is  debarred  from  discussing 
this  by  the  prohibition  of  any  writing  on  the 
conditions  of  peace.  He  is,  however,  quite  de- 
cided that  it  is  not  to  be  confined  to  the  two 
great  Central  Powers.  Their  union  is  to  be  the 
nucleus  to  which  the  other  lesser  states  of  Cen- 
tral Europe  are  to  be  attracted. 

In  order  to  understand  the  central  problem 
we  must  keep  in  mind  the  explanations  as  to  the 
extent  of  the  industrial  territory.  Industrial 
Central  Europe  must  be  larger  than  the  present 
territory  of  Germany,  Austria,  and  Hungary. 
We  have,  owing  to  the  military  situation,  re- 
frained from  naming  definite  neighbouring  states, 
and  have  only  dwelt  on  the  general  idea  that  there 
must  be  further  additions. 

His  contention  is  that  first  the  union  with 
Austria-Hungary  has  to  be  completed,  and  then 
this  will  be  followed  by  the  adhesion  of  other 
countries.  Which  these  countries  will  be  he 
leaves  an  open  question;  he  warns  his  readers 


i3o  THE    ISSUE 

against  the  exaggerated  hopes  of  some  of  his 
countrymen,  but  he  leaves  no  doubt  that  exten- 
sive additions  are  necessary,  and  will  be  secured, 
and  the  complete  picture  of  Central  Europe,  as 
we  can  gather  it  from  his  words,  is  a  state  as 
powerful,  as  dominant  as  any  of  the  dreams  of 
the  most  uncompromising  Pan-Germans;  it  is, 
in  fact,  greater,  for  by  giving  up  the  formula  of 
Germanism  he  in  reality  gives  up  what  must  be 
a  limiting  condition.  To  an  enlarged  Germany 
there  must  be  limits,  for,  after  all,  no  one  can 
maintain  that  the  whole  of  Central  Europe  is 
Germanic;  to  a  new  state  governed  and  directed 
from  Germany,  but  one  which  definitely  takes  no 
account  of  nationality,  the  binding  force  of  which 
is  the  commercial  and  industrial  union,  no  limit 
need  be  placed. 

And  so  he  asks  the  question :  "  Whom  shall 
we  invite  to  enter  the  union  ? "  But  he  does 
not  answer  it ;  for  this  is  "  a  section  of  our  work 
over  which  more  than  over  any  other  the  word 
*  caution  '  is  written,  for  we  are  in  the  midst  of 
war,  and  for  very  sufficient  reasons  must  not 
publish  anything  on  '  Kriegsziele,'  in  the  ordi- 
nary sense  of  the  word."  But  we  have  a  warning 
against  the  exaggerated  hopes  which  are  not 
uncommon  in  Germany,  a  warning  which  is  a 
useful  criticism  on  the  statements  of  those  who, 
like  the  Chancellor,  are  never  tired  of  telling  us 
that  the  Germans  are  fighting  merely  for  safety 
and  security. 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  131 

There  are,  indeed,  in  Germany,  as  in  other 
parts  of  Europe  just  now,  a  number  of  people 
who  place  no  restraint  on  their  unbridled  imag- 
ination, and  speak  as  though  they  had  entrusted 
to  them,  as  a  secondary  duty,  the  administration 
of  Holland,  Scandinavia,  Rumania,  Bulgaria, 
Greece,  and  the  Turkish  Empire,  and  only  need 
write  the  names  of  these  countries  down  on  paper 
in  order  to  bring  them  into  the  domain  of  Cen- 
tral Europe.  Yes,  there  are  bold  thinkers  who 
will  at  once  bring  in  Switzerland,  France,  Spain, 
and,  after  a  short  period  of  purification,  even 
Italy,  and  then  found  the  United  States  of  Eu- 
rope with  or  without  Belgium. 

If  he  does  not  categorically  answer  his  own 
question,  at  least  he  gives  us,  with  all  discretion, 
an  indication  of  how  he  would  answer  it,  and 
the  possibilities  which  he  opens  show  what  is 
reckoned  as  moderation  in  Germany. 

The  territory  of  Germany  and  Austria-Hun- 
gary, as  it  lies  before  us  shut  off  by  the  war,  is, 
of  course,  not  sufficient  as  an  industrial  province, 
for  it  is  in  far  too  high  a  degree  an  importer  of 
food  and  raw  material,  and  already  is  dependent 
in  much  too  great  an  extent  on  industrial  expor- 
tation to  be  able  to  maintain  itself  by  its  own 
exertion  even  in  the  chief  articles.  A  Central 
Europe  that  is  to  be  self-sufficient  requires  bor- 
dering agricultural  districts,  and  must  make  their 
adhesion  possible  and  desirable  to  them;  it  re- 
quires, if  possible,  an  extension  of  the  northern 


132  THE    ISSUE 

and  southern  seacoast,  it  requires  its  share  in 
colonial  possessions.  But  how  can  we  speak  of 
all  these  things  without  intruding  on  investiga- 
tions as  to  neutrality  or  the  coming  negotiations 
of  the  peace  congress?  Whether  and  in  what 
condition  we  shall  get  back  our  colonies  by 
exchange  at  the  peace  no  man  can  say.  In  our 
opinion  we  must  not  let  ourselves  be  robbed  of 
our  colonial  activity  at  any  price,  and,  if  it  is 
unavoidable,  must  make  concessions  of  the  land 
we  have  occupied  in  order  not  to  cease  to  be  a 
colonising  nation.  And  who  can  say  how,  after 
the  war,  the  future  lines  of  trenches  will  run 
through  Central  Europe?  Will  they  run  on  this 
or  the  other  side  of  Rumania  and  Bessarabia? 
Will  they  follow  the  Vistula  ?  Is  Bulgaria  to  be 
counted  as  belonging  to  the  "  sphere  of  interest  " 
of  Central  Europe?  Shall  we  gain  a  railway 
line  to  Constantinople,  placed  safely  in  the  hands 
of  our  Allies?  What  harbours  on  the  Mediter- 
ranean will  come  into  consideration  as  the 
terminus  of  the  Central  European  railway  lines? 
What  is  to  happen  to  Antwerp?  How  will 
the  Baltic  look  after  the  war?  There  are  a 
hundred  questions  the  answer  to  which  is  still 
to  come. 

Well,  Naumann  is  a  wiser  man  than  many  of 
his  countrymen.  He  knows  that  it  is  not  enough 
to  state  what  you  would  like  to  get ;  a  premature 
publication  of  their  demands  will  do  more  harm 
than  good;  there  is  a  virtue  in  silence  and  re- 
serve. But  he  clearly  indicates  where  his  de- 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  133 

sires  go.  This  new  state  will  be  well  endowed. 
He  will  not  mention  Switzerland .  or  Holland, 
for  that  would  raise  difficult  questions  of  neu- 
trality; he  is  not  sure  where  the  boundary  is  to 
be  drawn  in  Poland  —  at  the  Vistula  or  at  the 
marshes  of  Pripet;  which  Mediterranean  ports 
will  come  in  we  do  not  yet  know,  whether  it  will 
be  Salonica  or  Vallona  or  Smyrna;  and  they 
cannot  be  sure  that  they  will  secure  Bulgaria  and 
Rumania  and  Bessarabia,  or  whether  the  gain 
will  be  in  the  Baltic  Provinces  of  Russia.  The 
details  of  the  picture  are  not  complete,  but  the 
general  idea  is  there,  and  in  its  essential  features 
it  does  not  differ  from  that  of  the  Pan-German 
writers  whom  he  repudiates,  a  Germany  ruling 
all  Central  Europe  and  choosing  the  districts  that 
are  to  be  included  on  the  sure  ground  of  their 
commercial  and  industrial  value. 

II 

Central  Europe  will  not  be  national;  it  will 
only  be  the  rule  of  Germanism.  It  will  not  be 
peaceful;  for  it  will  primarily  be  organised  for 
war.  Neither  will  it  be  free.  Only  children  and 
dreamers  will  believe  that  this  new  organisation 
will  find  any  place  for  parliamentary  government 
or  democratic  control.  We  have  to  picture  to 
ourselves,  as  Naumann  points  out,  a  gradual 
separation  of  the  new  industrial  and  military 
state  from  the  old  national  states ;  this  will  have 


134  THE    ISSUE 

its   own    institutions,    and    will   administer    the 
common  affairs. 

Now,  how  will  these  common  affairs  be  con- 
trolled? Not  by  a  separate  parliament,  but  by 
special  commissions  consisting  of  experts  ap- 
pointed by  the  constituent  states.  The  work  of 
those  commissions,  and  that  means  the  whole 
government  in  all  that  concerns  the  highest  and 
essential  functions  of  the  state,  will  be  concen- 
trated in  a  new  bureaucracy. 

If  such  important  departments  of  life  as 
customs,  provisions,  the  administration  of  war 
loans,  the  control  of  trusts  and  syndicates,  are 
made  the  subject  of  Central  European  treaties 
and  commissions,  then  there  will  remain  indeed 
the  final  approval  to  the  parliaments,  but  it 
cannot  be  maintained  that  they  will  not  be 
excluded  from  practical  participation  in  them 
more  than  has  been  the  case  hitherto. 

Naumann  adds,  quite  justly,  that  even  now 
the  influence  of  parliaments  on  these  matters 
has  in  fact  been  small ;  in  particular,  commercial 
policy  has  become  highly  technical,  and  no  mem- 
ber can  understand  all  the  details  of  commer- 
cial life.  The  withdrawal  of  these  matters 
from  parliamentary  control  will  then  only  be 
the  continuance  of  a  tendency  that  has  already 
begun:  democratic  control  has  shown  itself  in- 
effective, and  it  is  quite  natural  that  it  should 
be  diminished.  And  as  for  commercial  affairs, 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  135 

so  also  for  military  and  naval.    Central  Europe 
will  be  a  single  military  union: 

In  this  there  lies  for  all  the  states  that  take 
part  in  it  a  certain  limitation  of  their  own  policy, 
for  they  give  up  waging  war  alone.  In  this 
limitation  there  is  at  the  same  time  contained  a 
powerful  protection  of  their  existence,  for  they 
are  no  longer  exposed  to  being  attacked  alone. 
Whoever  belongs  to  the  military  union  is  thereby 
secured  as  far  as  lies  within  the  power  of  the 
common  army. 

We  have,  then,  our  Union,  commercial,  indus- 
trial, and  military,  with  common  institutions 
managing  these  great  departments  of  public  life 
which  are  withdrawn  from  the  administration  of 
the  individual  states,  just  as  in  modern  Germany 
they  are  withdrawn  from  the  administration  of 
Saxony  or  Baden.  In  Germany  they  are  in  the 
hands  of  the  Imperial  administration,  with  which 
is  coupled  the  Reichstag  elected  by  universal 
suffrage.  Well !  The  Reichstag  has  not  been 
able  to  establish  control  over  ^he  administration 
as  has  the  English  Parliament,  but  none  the  less 
it  has  been  able  to  exercise  what  has  often  been 
a  very  inconvenient,  because  effective,  criticism. 
And  it  has  always  exerted  a  real  control  over  the 
provision  of  money.  New  laws  cannot  be  passed 
and  new  taxes  cannot  be  levied  without  its  as- 
sent, and  had  it  not  been  there  the  Government 
of  Germany  would  have  been  very  different. 


136  THE    ISSUE 

There  would  have  been  no  power  able  to  curb 
the  Prussian  bureaucracy,  the  Court,  the  landed 
classes,  and  the  great  financial  interests.  There 
would  have  been  no  workmen's  protection,  for 
there  would  have  been  no  socialistic  party  to  be 
combated  and  appeased.  What  is  proposed  — 
and  it  is  an  inevitable  result  of  the  Union 
of  Europe  —  is  a  German  Empire  without  a 
Reichstag. 

In  this  enlarged  Empire  who  will  govern? 

First  will  come  military  matters,  for  it  will  be 
on  the  army  that  it  will  rest,  as  it  was  by  the 
army  that  it  was  created.  This  army  will  be 
one  raised  by  universal  and  compulsory  enlist- 
ment, but  the  conditions  of  service,  the  size  of 
the  army,  the  discipline,  will  be  controlled  on 
purely  military  considerations,  and  there  will  be 
no  parliamentary  assembly  constitutionally  quali- 
fied to  discuss  and  criticise.  In  the  hands  of 
these  central  authorities  will  next  be  placed  the 
full  control  of  imports  and  exports,  all  that  con- 
cerns the  daily  food  of  the  people,  the  organisa- 
tion of  industry,  and  the  conditions  of  labour; 
but  there  will  be  no  central  parliament  with  its 
representatives  of  all  classes  who  can  voice  their 
hardships  and  demands.  All  will  be  in  the  hands 
of  the  expert  and  the  specialist.  And  who  are 
the  experts  and  specialists?  In  military  matters 
they  are  the  General  Staff  and  the  War  Office; 
in  commercial  affairs  they  are  the  great  Jewish 
bankers.  Naumann  tells  us  in  so  many  words 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  137 

that  it  is  to  the  Jews  that  he  looks  to  help  in 
the  introduction  of  German  commercial  habits  to 
the  more  backward  countries,  such  as  Hungary. 
And  in  this  society  a  place  will  be  found,  as  soon 
as  the  destruction  of  the  British  Empire  has 
made  way  for  the  "  freedom  of  the  seas,"  for  the 
managers  of  the  great  shipping  firms. 

Well,  we  can  easily  imagine  this  great  state  of 
the  future,  a  state  in  which  military  power 
prepares  the  way  for  commercial  efficiency,  in 
which  all  production  is  controlled  by  the  great 
financiers  working  through  the  constitutional  and 
orderly  channels  of  a  highly  trained  and  obedient 
bureaucracy,  in  which  a  close  tariff  provides  that 
the  Union  shall  be  self-sufficing  and  not  depend- 
ent on  trade  with  other  countries.  But  in  this 
new  political  condition  what  place  will  there  be 
for  freedom,  and  what  for  democracy?  The 
soldier  who  has  risked  his  life  in  the  trenches,  as 
he  was  taught,  for  the  security  of  Germany,  the 
father  who  has  lost  his  son,  and  the  woman  her 
husband,  will  see  that  what  they  had  fought  for 
is  not  the  permanence  and  security  of  the  old 
Germany  that  they  knew  and  loved,  a  Germany 
in  which  a  fresh  step  had  been  made  to  smooth 
away  the  inequalities  of  rank  and  condition,  but 
the  establishment  over  Germany  of  a  new  and 
autocratic  Government  which  will  for  all  time 
remove  the  prospect  that  the  simple  German 
citizen  will  have  any  real  share  in  the  control  of 
the  conditions  of  his  own  life.  He  will  come 


138  THE    ISSUE 

back  to  a  state  in  which  the  pressure  of  military 
service  will  not  be  relaxed,  but  it  will  now  not  be 
service  in  defence  of  the  Fatherland,  but  of  a 
cosmopolitan  state  in  which  his  own  labour  will 
be  exposed  to  the  competition  of  Slovenians  and 
Poles. 

The  danger  to  liberty  is  indeed  far  greater 
than  we  thought.  Modern  Germany  would  join 
together  in  one  fabric  of  rule  the  three  great 
elements  which  control  man  —  the  military  state, 
capitalism,  and  the  organisation  of  industry. 
The  army,  the  trade  union,  and  the  organisation 
of  finance  and  capital  —  in  England  we  have 
them  all,  but  they  are  independent  of  one  an- 
other, and  to  a  large  extent  even  hostile;  each 
therefore  neutralises  the  other.  The  system 
which  Germany  wishes  to  impose  on  Europe, 
and  which  it  will  impose  unless  it  is  defeated  in 
this  war,  is  one  in  which  the  same  state  which 
men  serve  in  the  army  will,  in  its  care  for  the 
well-being  of  the  workingman,  govern  each  de- 
tail of  his  working-day,  and  in  its  support  of  in- 
dustry be  able  to  manipulate  the  prices  of  each 
article  of  food  and  clothing;  and  this  state  will 
be  freed  from  all  popular  control  —  it  will  be  a 
great  syndicate  of  bankers,  and  it  will  have  un- 
der its  orders  an  army  twice  the  size  of  the 
German  army  that  we  know. 

The  value  to  Germany  of  this  scheme  is  that  it 
shows  clearly  that  annexations  are  unnecessary 
as  a  means  to  the  establishing  of  German  do- 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  139 

minion.  It  gives  a  guide  which  may  be  of  real 
use  to  an  adroit  politician.  It  is  on  annexation 
that  the  controversy  with  the  Socialists  turns, 
and  a  crude  policy  of  annexation,  of  the  kind 
which  the  noisy  politicians  demand,  would  revolt 
the  moral  sense  of  the  world.  But  why  not  get 
the  same  ends  without  using  the  word?  Give 
back  her  independence  to  Belgium,  set  up  an 
autonomous  Poland,  restore  perhaps  even  the 
shadow  of  her  national  existence  to  Serbia,  and 
maintain  the  alliance  with  Bulgaria,  but  let  the 
independence  and  the  autonomy  be  conditional 
on  the  conclusion  of  an  alliance  with  Germany 
and  Austria  by  which  the  armies  of  the  subject 
states  are  obedient  to  the  orders  that  come  from 
Berlin,  in  which  the  ports  are  open  to  German 
ships  of  war,  and  see  to  it  that  the  next  war  shall 
be  fought  not  on  the  German  frontier,  but  on 
the  frontiers  of  these  subject  principalities. 
Circle  them  with  a  barricade  of  trenches,  so  that 
no  hostile  army  shall  ever  be  able  to  advance 
over  their  territory,  and  Germany  will  be  safely 
cushioned,  and  the  rude  shock  of  war  would 
fall,  not  on  Cologne  and  Danzig,  but  on  Antwerp 
and  Warsaw. 

It  is  not  merely  by  annexations  that  the  great 
empires  of  the  world  have  been  built  up.  Rome, 
when  she  conquered  Italy,  did  not  annex  it,  nor 
did  England  begin  by  annexing  India.  That  is  a 
later  stage;  that  comes  when  the  memory  and 
desire  for  independence  have  disappeared;  till 


i4o  THE    ISSUE 

then  the  halfway  house  of  a  semi-federal  union 
will  suffice. 

A  careful  reading  of  the  Chancellor's  speeches 
will  show  that  Dr.  Naumann  has  in  him  a  sym- 
pathiser. What  the  Chancellor  has  again  and 
again  demanded  is  not  annexations,  but  guaran- 
tees —  guarantees  for  the  security  of  Germany, 
guarantees  political,  military,  and  commercial. 
These  are  precisely  Naumann's  requirements. 
But  this  way  of  putting  the  case  creates  an 
impression  of  moderation,  and  might  easily  mis- 
lead the  inexperienced,  either  in  England  or  in 
other  countries,  to  believe  that  here  we  really 
had  suggestions  on  which  a  permanent  and  just 
peace  might  be  made. 

If  this  is  the  future  which  Professor  Naumann 
paints  for  us,  that  of  Professor  Troltsch  does 
not  differ  from  it: 

For  the  moment  we  have  a  pledge  of  these 
hopes  in  the  mutual  relations  of  the  Central 
States  to  one  another.  Here  we  have  not  so 
much  an  idealistic  hope,  as  the  requirements  of 
practical  policy.  But  if  we  succeed  in  forming  a 
great  Central-European  block,  with  this  there 
arises  the  idea  of  hope  that  this  conception  of  the 
peoples  based  on  the  German  idea  of  freedom 
may  grow  beyond  it,  and  attract  other  states  also 
to  it.  Then  there  would  be  freedom  and  also 
peace  at  least,  for  as  far  as  we  can  see. 

Here  it  is  again  the  same  idea,  the  Central 
European  States  attracting  to  themselves,  but, 


CENTRAL    EUROPE  141 

of  course,  in  proper  subordination,  the  sur- 
rounding nations.  In  the  mind  of  a  German 
idealist,  this  takes  a  peaceful  and  generous  form. 
But  it  is  not  by  men  such  as  he  that  the  course 
of  the  world  is  governed,  and  we  know  that  the 
attraction  of  the  surrounding  nations  will  be 
managed  in  the  way  in  which  it  has  been  applied 
to  Poland,  to  Belgium,  and  to  Serbia. 

All  this  is  indeed  but  an  outward  garnishing 
and  decoration.  In  England,  which  is  governed 
by  Parliament,  and  where  every  turn  of  thought 
and  every  suggestion  of  an  idealist  finds  its 
proper  place  in  the  groove  of  that  public  opinion, 
by  which  the  state  is  governed,  we  can  always 
look  confidently  to  the  future,  certain  that  the 
crude  exaggerations  of  war  time,  the  violences  of 
military  necessity,  and  the  crudities  of  bellocratic 
organisation  will  be  softened  and  ameliorated  by 
the  constant  stream  of  criticism  and  discussion. 
In  Germany  we  know  that  this  will  not  be  the 
case;  there  we  know  that  the  great  machine, 
always  growing  in  perfection  and  in  weight,  will 
proceed  on  its  way,  careless  of  the  talkers  and 
the  thinkers  who  will  run  by  the  side  and  behind, 
finding  theories  and  ideas  to  justify  every  action 
that  it  takes.  This  machine  in  the  future  will 
be  infinitely  stronger  and  more  self-possessed 
than  in  the  past.  They  are  only  children  who 
believe  that  success  in  this  contest  will  lead  to 
any  relaxation  of  the  governmental  control  or 
increase  of  democratic  influence  in  the  state. 


i42  THE    ISSUE 

All  that  the  Germans  now  demand  is  more  and 
more  organisation,  greater  and  greater  efficiency. 
This  organisation  and  efficiency  will  not  be  won 
by  parliament  or  the  people;  it  will  be  won  by 
the  skilled  and  educated  governing  aristocracy  of 
the  intellect.  To  this  great  machine  all  the 
strength  of  the  nation  will  contribute,  but  the 
nation  will  not  guide  or  control  it,  and  this 
Germany  of  the  future  will  be  associated  in 
intimate  alliance  with  the  revived  Turkish 
Empire.  Foreign  policy  always  reacts  upon 
internal  affairs.  This  the  Germans  know  well 
from  their  own  past;  it  was  the  alliance  with 
Russia  and  with  Austria  which  crushed  the  free 
development  of  Germany  for  a  generation.  Will 
the  Germany  which  is  occupied  with  setting  up  a 
military  rule  in  Asia  and  transporting  to  another 
continent  the  chosen  plan  of  financial  organisa- 
tion and  military  power,  which  is  preparing  for 
the  next  great  struggle  with  the  British  Empire, 
which  is  laying  down  railways  in  Asia  Minor 
and  Mesopotamia,  forcing  Turks  and  Arabs  and 
Syrians  and  Bulgarians  to  take  their  place  as 
the  servant  of  the  state  machine;  will  this  Ger- 
man Government  tolerate  the  amateur  criticism 
of  parliamentary  parties  and  the  crude  individu- 
alism of  romantic  seekers  after  freedom  ? 

THE   END 


APPENDIX   I 

MANIFESTO    OF    THE    SIX    INDUSTRIAL 
ASSOCIATIONS 1 

[Strictly  confidential] 

THE  League  of  Agriculturalists  (Der  Bund  der 
Landwirte),  The  German  Peasants'  League  (Der 
Deutsche  Bauernbund),  The  Committee  of  the 
Christian  German  Peasant  Union,  formerly  the 
Westphalian  Peasant  Union  (Der  Vorort  der  Christ- 
lichen  Deutschen  Bauernvereine,  zurzeit  West- 
falischer  Bauernverein),  The  Central  Association 
of  German  Industrialists  (Der  Centralverband 
Deutscher  Industrieller),  The  League  of  Indus- 
trialists (Der  Bund  der  Industriellen),  and  The  Con- 
servative Middle-class  Association  (Der  Reichs- 
deutsche  Mittelstandsverband),  on  May  20,  1915, 
addressed  the  following  petition  to  the  Imperial 
Chancellor : 

To  His  Excellency  the  Imperial  Chancellor, 
Dr.  Bethmann  von  Hollweg. 

BERLIN,  May  20,  1915. 
EXCELLENCY, 

Together  with  the  whole  German  people,  those 
occupied  in  business  pursuits,  whether  in  agriculture 

1  This  is  translated    from  the   original  text  published  by 
the  Alliance  Francaise.     The  italics  are  as  in  the  original. 


144  APPENDIX 

or  industry,  in  trade  or  manufacture,  are  determined 
to  endure  to  the  end,  notwithstanding  every  sacri- 
fice, in  this  struggle  for  life  and  death  which  has 
been  forced  upon  Germany,  in  order  that  Germany 
may  come  out  of  this  struggle  stronger  in  its  exter- 
nal relations,  with  the  guarantee  of  permanent  peace, 
and  therewith  also  the  guarantee  for  the  security 
of  further  national,  industrial  and  intellectual  de- 
velopment, at  home  also. 

Even  if  the  military  situation  were  a  more  un- 
favourable one,  or  were  doubtful,  this  would  make 
no  difference,  if  the  object  which  His  Majesty  the 
Emperor  has  himself  put  before  us,  both  externally 
and  internally,  is  not  to  be  lost.  This  object  can 
only  be  attained  by  fighting  for  a  peace  which  will 
bring  us  better  security  for  our  frontiers  in  East  and 
West,  an  extension  for  the  foundations  of  our  sea 
power  and  the  possibility  of  an  unchecked  and  strong 
development  of  our  industrial  resources;  in  short, 
both  in  politics,  in  the  army,  in  the  navy  and  in  in- 
dustry, those  extensions  of  power  which  will  be  a 
guarantee  for  our  greater  strength  externally. 

The  peace  which  does  not  bring  us  these  results 
makes  a  renewal  of  the  struggle  unavoidable  under 
circumstances  which  would  be  essentially  less  fa- 
vourable to  Germany.  Therefore  no  hasty  peace. 
For  from  a  hasty  peace  we  could  not  hope  for  a 
sufficient  prize  of  victory. 

But  also  no  half-hearted  peace,  no  peace  which 
does  not  include  complete  political  exploitation  for 
the  military  successes,  for  which  we  hope  in  the 
directions  indicated. 

The  following  memorandum,  which  was  drawn  up 
on  March  10,  of  this  year  by  the  League  of  Agri- 
culturists, The  German  Peasants'  League,  The 
Central  Association  of  German  Industrialists,  The 
League  of  Industrialists  and  the  Conservative 


APPENDIX  145 

Middle-class  Association,  and  addressed  to  Your 
Excellency,  and  to  which  the  Christian  German 
Peasants'  Union,  which  is  also  a  signatory  to  this 
address,  has  been  added,  explains  in  detail  the  re- 
quirements which  —  the  necessary  military  successes 
being  assumed  —  must  in  the  opinion  of  the  under- 
signed Associations  be  fulfilled  in  order  to  secure  for 
Germany  that  political,  military  and  industrial  posi- 
tion which  would  enable  her  to  look  with  satisfaction 
to  all  possibilities  of  the  future. 
The  memorandum  was  as  follows : 

"  The  undersigned  Corporations  have  occupied 
themselves  with  the  question  of  how  the  formula, 
which  has  in  the  last  months  so  often  been  heard, 
viz. :  that  this  war  must  be  followed  by  an  honour- 
able peace  which  corresponds  to  the  sacrifices  which 
have  been  made  and  contains  in  itself  a  guarantee 
for  its  continuance,  can  best  be  realised. 

"  In  answering  this  question,  it  must  never  be  for- 
gotten that  our  enemies  continuously  announce  that 
Germany  is  to  be  annihilated  and  struck  out  of  the 
rank  of  the  Great  Powers.  In  view  of  these  at- 
tempts we  shall  find  no  protection  in  treaties,  which, 
when  the  fitting  moment  comes,  would  be  again 
trodden  underfoot,  BUT  ONLY  IN  A  WEAKENING  OF 

OUR  ENEMIES,  BOTH  INDUSTRIALLY  AND  MILITARILY, 
CARRIED  TO  SUCH  AN  EXTENT  THAT  BY  IT  PEACE 
WILL  BE  SECURED  SO  FAR  AS  CAN  BE  FORESEEN. 

"  Side  by  side  with  the  demand  for  Colonial  Em- 
pire, which  completely  satisfies  the  many-sided  in- 
dustrial interests  of  Germany,  side  by  side  with  the 
security  of  our  future  in  matters  of  customs  and 
commerce  and  the  requirements  for  sufficient  war  in- 
demnity to  be  given  in  a  suitable  form,  we  regard 
the  chief  end  of  the  struggle  which  has  been  forced 
upon  us  as  lying  in  the  security  and  improvement  of 


146  APPENDIX 

the  foundations  for  the  European  existence  of  the 
German  Empire  in  the  following  directions : 

"  BELGIUM 

"  In  order  to  provide  the  necessary  security  for 
our  influence  at  sea,  in  order  to  secure  our  future 
military  and  industrial  position  as  against  England, 
and  in  order  to  bring  about  the  close  connexion  of 
Belgian  territory,  which  is  industrially  of  such  im- 
portance, with  our  main  industrial  districts,  Belgium 
must  be  SUBJECTED  TO  THE  GERMAN  IMPERIAL  LEG- 
ISLATION, BOTH  IN  MILITARY  AND  TARIFF  MATTERS, 
AS  WELL  AS  IN  REGARD  TO  CURRENCY,  BANKING  AND 

POST.  Railways  and  canals  must  be  incorporated  in 
our  transport  system.  In  addition  the  Government 
and  Administration  of  the  country  must  be  so  man- 
aged that  the  inhabitants  obtain  no  influence  on  the 
political  fortunes  of  the  German  Empire ;  there  must 
be  a  separation  of  the  Walloons  and  of  the  predomi- 
nantly Flemish  territory,  and  the  industrial  under- 
takings and  landed  property,  which  are  so  important 
for  the  Government  of  the  country,  must  be  trans- 
ferred into  German  hands. 

"  FRANCE 

"  SO  FAR  AS  REGARDS  FRANCE  FROM  THE  SAME 
POINT  OF  VIEW  AS  OUR  POSITION  TOWARDS  ENGLAND, 
THE  POSSESSION  OF  THE  COASTAL  DISTRICTS  BORDER- 
ING ON  BELGIUM,  AS  FAR  AS  THE  NEIGHBOURHOOD  OF 

THE  SOMME,  AND  WITH  THEM  ACCESS  TO  THE  AT- 
LANTIC OCEAN,  MUST  BE  REGARDED  AS  A  VITAL 

MATTER    FOR    OUR    FUTURE    POSITION    AT    SEA.       The 

'  Hinterland,'  which  must  be  acquired  with  them, 
must  be  so  delimited  that  the  complete  use  of  the 
canal-ports  which  we  gain,  both  for  industrial  and 
strategic  purposes,  must  be  secured.  All  further  ac- 


APPENDIX  147 

quisitions  of  French  Territory,  apart  from  the  neces- 
sary annexation  of  the  mining  district  of  Briey,  must 
be  determined  purely  according  to  military  and  stra- 
tegical considerations.  After  the  experiences  of  this 
war,  it  must  be  regarded  as  a  matter  of  course  that 
we  must  not  in  the  future  leave  our  frontiers  open 
to  hostile  invasion,  as  we  should  do  if  we  left  to  our 
opponents  those  fortified  positions  which  threaten 
us,  and  in  particular  Verdun  and  Belfort  and  the 
part  of  the  Western  slopes  of  the  Vosges  which  lies 
between  them.  With  the  acquisition  of  the  line  of 
the  Meuse  and  the  French  coast  to  which  the  canals 
lead,  and  the  mining  districts  of  Briey,  which  have 
been  mentioned,  the  possession  of  the  canal  districts 
in  the  department  of  the  Nord  and  the  Pas  de  Calais 
is  necessarily  included.  It  is  a  matter  of  course, 
after  our  experiences  in  Alsace-Lorraine,  that  these 
annexations  be  based  on  the  condition  that  the 
population  of  the  annexed  districts  shall  not  be 
placed  in  the  position  to  exercise  political  influence 
on  the  fortunes  of  the  German  Empire,  and  THAT 

INDUSTRIAL  ESTABLISHMENTS,  INCLUDING  BOTH 
LARGE  AND  MODERATE-SIZED  PROPERTIES,  SHOULD  BE 
TRANSFERRED  TO  GERMAN  HANDS,  WHILE  FRANCE 
SHOULD  COMPENSATE  AND  TAKE  OVER  THEIR  OWNERS. 


"  RUSSIA 

"  For  the  East  the  determining  consideration  must 
be  that  the  great  addition  to  our  industry  in  the 
West  must  be  counterbalanced  by  an  equivalent 
annexation  of  agricultural  territory  in  the  East. 
The  present  industrial  structure  of  Germany  has 
shown  itself  so  fortunate  in  the  present  war,  that 
the  necessity  for  maintaining  it  for  as  long  a  time  as 
we  can  foresee  may  well  be  termed  the  general  con- 
viction of  our  people. 


148  APPENDIX 

"  The  necessity  of  strengthening  also  the  sound 
agricultural  basis  of  our  nation,  of  making  possible 
a  German  agricultural  colonisation  on  a  large  scale, 
as  well  as  the  restoration  to  the  territory  of  the 
Empire,  and  to  our  industrial  system,  of  the  German 
peasants  who  are  living  abroad,  especially  those 
settled  in  Russia  and  at  present  deprived  of  their 
rights,  and  of  strengthening  and  raising  the  numbers 
of  our  population  capable  of  bearing  arms,  REQUIRES 
A  CONSIDERABLE  EXTENSION  OF  THE  IMPERIAL  AND 
PRUSSIAN  FRONTIERS  IN  THE  EAST  BY  ANNEXATION 
OF  AT  LEAST  PARTS  OF  THE  BALTIC  PROVINCES  AND 
OF  THOSE  TERRITORIES  WHICH  LIE  TO  THE  SOUTH  OF 
IT,  while  keeping  in  mind  the  object  of  making  our 
Eastern  German  frontier  one  capable  of  military 
defence. 

"  The  reconstruction  of  East  Prussia  requires  a 
better  security  of  its  frontiers  by  placing  in  front  of 
them  considerable  districts,  and  also  West  Prussia, 
Posen  and  Silicia  must  not  remain  frontier  marches 
exposed  to  danger  as  they  now  are. 

"  With  regard  to  the  granting  of  political  rights 
to  the  inhabitants  of  the  new  districts  and  the 
securing  of  German  industrial  influence,  that  applies 
which  has  already  been  said  about  France.  The  war 
indemnity  to  be  paid  by  Russia  will  have  to  consist 
to  a  large  extent  in  change  in  the  proprietorship  of 
the  soil. 

"  THE  GROUNDS  FOR  ANNEXATION 

"  Of  course  these  demands  depend  on  the  hypothe- 
sis that  military  results  will  enable  them  to  be  carried 
out.  In  accordance  with  what  we  have  already 
achieved,  we  have  firm  confidence  in  our  army  and 
its  leaders  that  a  victory  will  be  secured  which  will 
guarantee  the  attainment  of  these  ends.  These  ends 
are  to  be  put  before  us,  not  from  a  policy  of  con- 


APPENDIX  149 

quest,  but  because  it  is  only  the  attainment  of  these 
ends  which  will  secure  the  permanent  peace,  which, 
after  the  great  sacrifices  which  have  been  made,  the 
German  people  in  all  its  branches  expects,  quite 
apart  from  the  fact  that,  according  to  our  view,  a 
voluntary  surrender  of  the  hostile  territories  which 
have  been  watered  with  so  much  German  blood,  and 
in  which  are  found  innumerable  graves  of  the  very 
best  of  our  people,  would  not  correspond  to  the  feel- 
ing of  the  people  and  their  conception  of  an  hon- 
ourable peace. 

"  In  the  future  as  in  the  past,  the  want  of  harbours 
directly  on  the  Channel  would  strangle  our  activity 
beyond  the  seas.  An  independent  Belgium  would 
continue  to  be  a  tete  du  pont  to  England,  a  point 
from  which  to  attack  us.  The  natural  line  of  forti- 
fications of  France  in  the  hands  of  the  French  im- 
plies a  permanent  menace  to  our  frontiers ;  and  Rus- 
sia, if  she  emerged  from  the  war  without  loss  of 
territory,  would  despise  our  capacity  for  action  and 
the  power  which  might  check  her  in  disturbing  our 
interests,  while  on  the  other  side  the  failure  to  attain 
agricultural  territories  on  our  Eastern  frontier  would 
diminish  the  possibility  of  strengthening  the  defen- 
sive power  of  Germany  against  Russia  by  a  sufficient 
increase  of  the  German  population." 

As  a  supplement  to  this  manifesto,  we  must  here 
lay  special  stress  on  the  fact  that  the  political,  mili- 
tary and  industrial  objects  which  the  German  people 
must  strive  after  in  the  interests  of  the  security  of 
their  future,  stand  in  the  closest  connexion  with  and 
cannot  be  separated  from  one  another.  It  is  clear, 
to  start  with,  that  the  attainment  of  our  great  politi- 
cal objects  depends  on  the  offensive  power  and  the 
successes  of  our  army.  There  can,  however,  be  no 
doubt,  particularly  after  the  experiences  of  this  war, 


i5o  APPENDIX 

that  our  military  successes  and  their  exploitation  in 
a  wide  field  is  conditioned  by  the  industrial  strength 
and  active  power  of  our  people,  and  this  especially  if 
we  take  a  long  view.  If  German  agriculture  had  not 
been  in  a  position  to  secure  the  food  of  the  people 
despite  all  the  efforts  of  our  enemies,  and  if  German 
industry,  German  inventing  spirit  and  German  tech- 
nical skill  had  not  been  in  the  condition  to  make  us 
independent  of  foreign  countries  in  the  most  dif- 
ferent spheres,  then,  notwithstanding  the  brilliant 
successes  of  our  victorious  troops,  we  should  have 
eventually  had  to  give  way  in  the  struggle  which 
had  been  forced  upon  us,  if  indeed  we  should  not 
have  already  been  defeated. 

In  a  very  special  manner  this  applies  to  the  re- 
quirements put  forward  in  the  Memorandum,  on 
the  one  side  for  the  acquisition  of  territory  suitable 
to  agricultural  settlers,  and  on  the  other  side  for 
seizing  the  mining  district  of  the  Meurthe  and 
Moselle  as  well  as  of  the  French  coaling  districts  in 
the  Departments  of  the  Nord  and  the  Pas  de  Calais 
and  also  the  Belgian. 

We  cannot  do  without  the  acquisition  of  sufficient 
territory  suitable  for  agricultural  settlement,  both 
in  the  interests  of  the  extension  of  the  agricultural 
foundations  of  our  national  industry,  and  included 
in  this,  the  maintenance  of  that  happy  balance  in 
our  whole  industrial  system  which  has  been  recog- 
nised as  so  necessary  in  the  present  war,  and  also 
for  the  security  of  the  source  of  the  national  strength 
of  our  people,  and  especially  the  increase  in  the 
numbers  of  the  population  which  flows  from  a  vigor- 
ous agriculture  and  which  strengthens  our  military 
power. 

In  the  same  way,  acquisitions  such  as  that  of  the 
mining  and  coal  districts  which  have  been  spoken 
of,  are  not  only  in  the  interests  of  the  development 


APPENDIX  151 

of  our  industrial  forces,  but  also  represent  the  mili- 
tary interests. 

The  security  of  the  German  Empire  in  a  future 
war  also  imperatively  requires  the  possession  of  the 
whole  adjoining  territory  of  Luxemburg  and  Lor- 
raine, including  the  fortifications  of  Longwy  and 
Verdun,  without  which  this  territory  cannot  be  held. 

The  possession  of  larger  supplies  of  coal  and,  in 
particular,  of  coal  rich  in  bitumen,  which  is  found  in 
great  quantities  in  the  basin  of  Northern  France,  is 
decisive  for  the  result  of  the  war,  at  least  to  as  great 
an  extent  as  is  iron  ore. 

Belgium  and  North  France  together  produce  over 
forty  million  tons.1 

In  conclusion,  it  may  be  said  that  the  objects 
which  we  have  in  view  for  the  permanent  security 
of  our  industry,  are  also  the  objects  which  guarantee 
us  our  military  strength,  and  thereby  our  political 
independence  and  power,  quite  apart  from  the  fact 
that,  by  the  extension  of  our  capacity  for  industrial 
activity,  they  increase  and  secure  opportunities  for 
work,  and  thereby  serve  to  the  advantage  of  the 
whole  of  the  working  classes. 

1  The  German  ton  is  slightly  smaller  than  the  English  ton; 
the  German  ton  contains  1000  kgs.,  the  English  ton  1016 

kgs. 


APPENDIX   H 

GERMANY'S    PEACE   TERMS 
MANIFESTO  OF  THE  GERMAN  PROFESSORS  l 

A  REMARKABLE  programme  adopted  by  a  number  of 
German  professors  and  other  intellectuals,  at  a 
meeting  held  on  June  20,  in  the  Berlin  Kiinstlerhaus, 
for  the  purpose  of  its  being  presented  in  petition 
form  to  the  German  Imperial  Chancellor,  was  pub- 
lished in  Berne,  Switzerland,  on  August  10.  The 
document  is  printed  off  in  characters  to  resemble 
manuscript.  Among  the  signatories  are  Friedrich 
Meinecke,  Professor  of  History,  Berlin;  Hermann 
Oncken,  Professor  of  History,  Heidelberg;  Herr 
von  Reichenau,  retired  diplomat;  Herr  von 
Schwerin,  Regierungs-president,  of  Frankfurt-am- 
Main,  and  Dietrich  Schafer,  Professor  of  History, 
Berlin. 

"The  German  people  and  their  Emperor  have 
preserved  peace  for  forty-four  years,  preserved  it 
until  its  further  maintenance  was  incompatible  with 
national  honour  and  our  continued  existence.  De- 
spite her  increase  in  strength  and  population,  never 
has  Germany  thought  of  transgressing  the  narrow 
bounds  of  her  possessions  on  the  European  Conti- 
nent with  a  view  to  conquest.  Upon  the  world's 

1  This  is  taken  from  a  version  published  in  America: 
Current  History  (October,  1915). 


APPENDIX  153 

markets  alone  was  she  forced  to  make  an  entry,  so  as 
to  insure  her  economic  existence  by  peacefully  com- 
peting with  other  nations. 

"  To  our  enemies,  however,  even  these  narrow 
limits  and  a  share  of  the  world's  trade  necessary  to 
our  existence  seemed  too  much,  and  they  formed 
plans  which  aimed  at  the  very  annihilation  of  the 
German  Empire.  Then  we  Germans  rose  as  one 
man,  from  the  highest  to  the  meanest,  realising  that 
we  must  defend  not  only  our  external  life  but  also 
our  inner,  spiritual  and  moral  life  —  in  short,  de- 
fend German  and  European  civilisation  (Kultur) 
against  barbarian  hordes  from  the  east,  and  desire 
for  vengeance  and  domination  from  the  west.  With 
God's  help,  hand  in  hand  with  our  trusty  ally,  we 
have  been  able  victoriously  to  assert  ourselves 
against  half  a  world  of  enemies. 

"  Now,  however,  another  foe  has  arisen,  in  Italy. 
It  is  no  longer  sufficient  for  us  merely  to  defend 
ourselves.  Sword  in  hand,  our  foes  have  compelled 
us  to  make  enormous  sacrifices  of  blood  and  treas- 
ure. Now  we  want  to  defend  ourselves  with  all  our 
might  against  a  repetition  of  such  an  attack  from 
every  side,  against  a  whole  succession  of  wars,  and 
against  the  possibility  of  our  enemies  again  becoming 
strong.  Moreover,  we  are  determined  to  establish 
ourselves  so  firmly  on  such  a  broad  expanse  of  se- 
curely won  homeland  that  our  independent  existence 
is  guaranteed  for  generations  to  come. 

"  As  to  these  main  objects  the  nation  is  unanimous 
in  its  determination.  The  plain  truth,  for  which 
there  is  the  most  absolute  foundation,  is  this.  Only 
one  fear  exists  in  all  classes  of  our  people,  and  espe- 
cially is  there  a  deep-seated  fear  prevailing  among 
the  most  simple-minded  sections  that  mistaken  ideas 
of  atonement  (Versohnungsillusionen'}  or 'even  nerv- 
ous impatience  might  lead  to  the  conclusion  of  a  pre- 


154  APPENDIX 

mature  and  consequently  patched-up  peace,  which 
could  never  be  lasting;  and  that,  as  happened  a 
hundred  years  ago,  the  pen  of  the  diplomats  might 
ruin  what  the  sword  has  successfully  conquered,  and 
this  perhaps  in  the  most  fateful  hour  of  German 
history,  when  popular  feeling  has  attained  an  inten- 
sity and  unanimity  which  was  never  known  in  the 
past  and  which  will  not  so  easily  recur  in  the  future. 

"  Let  there  be  no  mistake.  We  do  not  wish  to 
dominate  the  world,  but  to  have  a  standing  in  it 
fully  corresponding  to  the  greatness  of  our  position 
as  a  civilised  power  and  our  economic  and  military 
strength.  It  may  be  that  owing  to  the  numerical 
superiority  of  our  enemies  we  cannot  obtain  every- 
thing we  wish  in  order  to  insure  our  position  as  a 
nation ;  but  the  military  results  of  this  war,  obtained 
by  such  great  sacrifices,  must  be  utilised  to  the  very 
utmost  possible  extent.  This,  we  repeat,  is  the  firm 
determination  of  the  German  people. 

"  To  give  clear  expression  to  this  fixed  popular 
determination,  and  to  convey  such  expression  to  the 
Government,  to  afford  it  strong  support  in  its  diffi- 
cult task  of  enforcing  Germany's  necessary  claims 
against  a  few  faint-hearted  individuals  at  home  as 
well  as  bitter  enemies  abroad,  is  the  duty  and  right 
of  those  whose  education  and  position  raise  them 
to  the  level  of  intellectual  leaders  and  protagonists  of 
public  opinion,  and  we  make  appeal  to  them  to 
fulfil  this  duty. 

"  Being  well  aware  that  a  distinction  must  be 
drawn  between  the  objects  of  the  war  and  the  final 
conditions  of  peace,  that  everything  of  necessity 
depends  on  the  final  success  of  our  arms,  and  that 
it  cannot  be  our  business  to  discuss  Austria-Hun- 
gary's and  Turkey's  military  objects,  we  have  drawn 
up  the  following  brief  statement  of  what,  according 
to  our  conviction,  constitutes  for  Germany  the  guar- 


APPENDIX  155 

antees  of  a  lasting-  peace  and  the  goals  to  which  the 
blood-stained  roads  of  this  war  must  lead. 


"  i.  FRANCE 

"  After  being  threatened  by  France  for  centuries, 
and  after  hearing  the  cry  of  vengeance  from  1815 
till  1870  and  from  1871  till  1915,  we  wish  to  have 
done  with  the  French  menace  once  for  all.  All 
classes  of  our  people  are  imbued  with  this  desire. 
There  must,  however,  be  no  misplaced  attempts  at 
expiation  (Versohnungsbemuhungen},  which  have 
always  been  opposed  by  France  with  the  utmost 
fanaticism ;  and  as  regards  this  we  would  utter  a 
most  urgent  warning  to  Germans  not  to  deceive 
themselves.  Even  after  the  terrible  lesson  of  this 
unsuccessful  war  of  vengeance,  France  will  still 
thirst  for  revenge,  in  so  far  as  her  strength  permits. 
For  the  sake  of  our  own  existence  we  must  ruthlessly 
weaken  her  both  politically  and  economically,  and 
must  improve  our  military  and  strategical  position 
with  regard  to  her.  For  this  purpose  in  our  opinion 
it  is  necessary  radically  to  improve  our  whole  west- 
ern front  from  Belfort  to  the  coast.  Part  of  the 
North  French  Channel  coast  we  must  acquire,  if 
possible,  in  order  to  be  strategically  safer  as  re- 
gards England  and  to  secure  better  access  to  the 
ocean. 

"  Special  measures  must  be  taken  to  avoid  the 
German  Empire  in  any  way  suffering  internally 
owing  to  this  enlargement  of  its  frontier  and  addi- 
tion to  its  territory.  In  order  not  to  have  conditions 
such  as  those  in  Alsace-Lorraine  the  most  important 
business  undertakings  and  estates  must  be  trans- 
ferred from  anti-German  ownership  to  German 
hands,  France  taking  over  and  compensating  the 
former  owners.  Such  portion  of  the  population  as 


i56  APPENDIX 

is  taken  over  by  us  must  be  allowed  absolutely  no 
influence  in  the  Empire. 

"  Furthermore,  it  is  necessary  to  impose  a  merci- 
lessly high  war  indemnity  (of  which  more  hereafter) 
upon  France,  and  probably  on  her  rather  than  on 
any  other  of  our  enemies,  however  terrible  the 
financial  losses  she  may  have  already  suffered  owing 
to  her  own  folly  and  British  self-seeking.  We  must 
also  not  forget  that  she  has  comparatively  large 
colonial  possessions,  and  that,  should  circumstances 
arise,  England  could  hold  on  to  these  with  impunity 
if  we  do  not  help  ourselves  to  them. 

"  2.  BELGIUM 

"  On  Belgium,  on  the  acquisition  of  which  so  much 
of  the  best  German  blood  has  been  shed,  we  must 
keep  firm  hold,  from  the  political,  military,  and 
economic  standpoints,  despite  any  arguments  which 
may  be  urged  to  the  contrary.  On  no  point  are  the 
masses  more  united,  for  without  the  slightest  possible 
doubt  they  consider  it  a  matter  of  honour  to  hold 
on  to  Belgium. 

"  From  the  political  and  military  standpoints  it 
is  obvious  that,  were  this  not  done,  Belgium  would 
be  neither  more  nor  less  than  a  basis  from  which 
England  could  attack  and  most  dangerously  menace 
Germany,  in  short,  a  shield  behind  which  our  foes 
would  again  assemble  against  us.  Economically 
Belgium  means  a  prodigious  increase  of  power 
to  us. 

"  In  time  also  she  may  entail  a  considerable  addi- 
tion to  our  nation,  if  in  course  of  time  the  Flemish 
element,  which  is  so  closely  allied  to  us,  becomes 
emancipated  from  the  artificial  grip  of  French  cul- 
ture and  remembers  its  Teutonic  affinities. 

"  As  to  the  problems  which  we  shall  have  to  solve 


APPENDIX  157 

once  we  possess  Belgium,  we  would  lay  special  stress 
on  the  inhabitants  being-  allowed  no  political  influence 
in  the  Empire,  and  on  the  necessity  for  transferring 
from  anti-German  to  German  hands  the  leading 
business  enterprises  and  properties  in  the  districts 
to  be  ceded  by  France." 

The  manifesto  speaks  of  the  growing  Russian 
peril,  and  says  that  the  occupied  part  of  Russia 
should  become  a  rich  agricultural  country,  where 
the  surplus  German  population  and  the  refugees  who 
have  found  an  asylum  in  Germany  will  be  settled. 
It  proceeds: 

"  Russia  is  so  rich  in  territory  that  she  will  be 
able  to  pay  an  indemnity  in  kind  by  giving  lands,  but 
lands  without  landlords.  Peace  with  Russia,  which 
would  not  diminish  Russian  power  and  increase 
German  territory,  would  surely  lead  to  a  renewal  of 
the  war.  Once  the  Russians  are  driven  back  beyond 
their  new  frontier  we  shall  not  forget  the  war  which 
England  has  made  on  the  maritime  and  colonial 
commerce  of  Germany.  That  must  be  the  guide  of 
our  action.  We  must  supplant  the  world  trade  of 
Great  Britain.  By  her  blockade  of  Germany,  Eng- 
land has  instructed  us  in  the  art  of  being  a  European 
power  militarily  and  industrially  independent  of 
others.  We  must  immediately  seek  to  create  for 
ourselves,  apart  from  the  empire  of  the  seas,  a  Con- 
tinental commercial  enceinte  as  extensive  as  possible. 
Our  friends  Austria-Hungary  and  Turkey  will  open 
to  us  the  Balkans  and  Asia  Minor,  and  thus  we  shall 
assure  ourselves  of  the  Persian  Gulf  against  the  pre- 
tensions of  Russia  and  Great  Britain.  We  must  also 
sign  as  speedily  as  possible  commercial  treaties  with 
our  close  political  friends.  Then  we  shall  devote 
our  attention  to  recovering  our  overseas  commerce. 


158  APPENDIX 

Our  old  commercial  and  maritime  treaties  must  be 
renewed,  and  everywhere  we  must  obtain  the  same 
treatment  as  Great  Britain.  In  Africa  we  must 
reconstitute  our  colonial  empire.  Central  Africa  is 
only  a  huge  desert,  which  does  not  offer  enough 
colonial  wealth.  We  therefore  require  other  pro- 
ductive lands,  and  herein  is  to  be  found  the  impor- 
tance of  our  alliance  with  Islam  and  the  utility  of 
our  maritime  outlet.  Those  who  want  to  exchange 
Belgium  for  our  colonies  forget  that  not  only  are 
colonies  the  foundation  of  all  European  power,  but 
that  colonies  without  an  opening  to  the  sea  would 
always  be  the  slaves  of  the  good  or  ill  will  of  Eng- 
land. We  need  liberty  of  the  seas,  which  was  the 
real  cause  of  war  between  England  and  Germany. 
To  obtain  it  we  must  have  Egypt,  the  connecting- 
link  between  British  Africa  and  British  Asia  — 
Egypt,  which  with  Australia  makes  the  Indian 
Ocean  an  English  sea,  which  joins  up  all  the  British 
colonies  with  the  mother  country,  which,  as  Bismarck 
said,  is  the  neck  of  the  British  Empire.  That  is 
where  England  must  be  shaken.  The  Suez  Canal 
route  will  then  be  free,  and  Turkey  will  regain  her 
ancient  right. 

"THE  PRESS 

"  But  England  also  invades  the  universal  press ; 
we  must  take  this  monopoly  away.  Our  best  arm 
against  English  permeation  is  the  liberty  which,  as 
leaders  of  Europe,  we  shall  bring  to  the  whole 
world.  With  regard  to  war  indemnities,  we  shall  de- 
mand an  indemnity  which,  as  much  as  possible,  shall 
cover  war  expenditure,  the  repair  of  damage,  and 
pensions  for  disabled  men,  widows,  and  orphans. 
We  know  that  the  question  has  been  examined  by 
the  Government  according  to  the  financial  capacities 
of  our  enemies.  From  England,  which  has  been  so 


APPENDIX  159 

niggardly  in  men,  we  can  never  demand  enough 
money,  because  England  raised  the  world  against  us 
with  gold.  It  is  our  duty  to  crush  the  insatiable 
cupidity  of  this  nation.  However,  we  shall  probably 
have  to  apply  for  a  war  indemnity  to  France  in  the 
first  place,  if  not  exclusively.  We  ought  not  to  hesi- 
tate to  impose  upon  France  as  much  as  possible  out 
of  false  sentimentalism.  As  mitigation  she  might  be 
offered  one  of  the  sides  of  the  Suez  Canal,  while  we 
occupy  the  other.  Should  France  refuse  that,  as 
well  as  the  financial  obligation  that  we  should  ask 
her,  we  should  have  to  impose  on  her  a  policy  which 
would  satisfy  us.  We  do  not  want  a  policy  of  cul- 
ture without  a  policy  of  action.  Germany  must  in- 
sure her  political  and  commercial  life  before  trying 
to  propagate  her  spirit.  Let  us  at  first  give  a  healthy 
body  to  our  German  soul." 

The  manifesto  concludes  with  this  saying  of 
Bismarck: 

"  '  Whenever,  in  any  sphere  of  politics  or  else- 
where, one  thinks  one  has  touched  an  obstacle  with 
one's  finger,  courage  and  victory  no  longer  stand  in 
the  relation  of  cause  to  effect,  but  are  identical.' " 


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